Pine64, the developer of the PinePhone, has released four accessories for the Linux phone. The accessories include a keyboard case with a physical keyboard, a LoRa case, a fingerprint reader and a case that allows wireless charging with the PinePhone.
The accessories have appeared in the Pine64 webshop, Liliputing discovered. All four accessories are compatible with both the original PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro announced in November. The four covers were announced by Pine64 in November 2020. All cases replace the back of the PinePhone, snapping directly into the phone through the Pogo pins in the mid-section of the phone, with no additional cables required.
The keyboard case, which has a retail price of 61 euros, but temporarily costs 43.96 euros, has 54 keys, divided into five rows, with a larger space bar and enter key. The keyboard has a qwerty layout, but the keycaps can be exchanged. The case weighs 191 grams, without the phone, and has its own 6000mAh battery, which significantly increases the battery capacity of the PinePhone. The firmware is open and self-programmable and the case comes with an unused internal USB 2.0 header for DIY with additional functionality. The case is initially supported by postmarketOS, Manjaro Linux, DanctNIX and Mobian.
The fingerprint scanner case also uses the Pogo pins and replaces the original back cover. The scanner can be used to unlock the phone, but also reads swipe input, potentially allowing it to be used for UI navigation or scrolling as well. The i2c bridge between the phone and the sensor uses open firmware. That case now costs 21.98 euros converted.
The case that adds wireless charging works with any OS, Pine64 writes, and accepts Qi Wireless and the Wireless Power Consortium protocol, and charges the phone at 5W. This case now costs the equivalent of 8.79 euros. The last case is a PineDio LoRa add-on equipped with a Semtech SX1262 LoRa module. Open software is available for the LoRa module to work with the PinePhone to receive LoRa messages. Because all cases use the Pogo Pins, it means that only one of the cases can be used at a time. This module temporarily costs 17.58 euros.