When we announced the Librem 5 crowdfunding campaign we promised we would publish the Librem 5 hardware schematics when we ship. That promise is also rooted in our articles of incorporation to release schematics of any hardware we author. We’ve shipped the first Librem 5 phones from the Birch batch to backers and photos, videos and positive early impressions are being shared.

Librem 5 Birch Hardware Schematics

We are excited to share the hardware schematics for the Librem 5 Birch batch with you today.







You may be wondering why anyone would share their hardware schematics with the world? After all making a ground breaking open and freedom respecting phone is expensive and takes a long time. We are doing it because we believe in the freedom to choose hardware and software that treats you like a person and not a commodity to be exploited for profit.

We believe that you should have full ownership of your hardware, you shouldn’t have to essentially rent it from a company to be safe. While privacy and security are popular marketing terms these days, when many companies use those words they expect your complete and blind trust and reliance. While we believe you should trust us, we don’t require you to put blind trust in us. By publishing our schematics we give you the ability to verify that trust on your own (or with the help of someone else).

We’ve previously released hardware schematics for the Librem 5 devkits and now the Librem 5 Birch batch and will continue to share up-to-date specifications for future products and iterations. Why is this important for you even if you have no interest in looking at the specifications? Open hardware schematics allow anyone to audit, verify and contribute to more freedom respecting products. You shouldn’t have to blindly trust that any corporation has your best interests in mind.

X-Ray Images

In addition to us publishing our hardware schematics we are also sharing X-Ray scans of the components to empower anyone with access to the tools to be able compare their hardware to the reference and ensure no nefarious components have been added. By being completely transparent, we are showing you can trust us rather than just telling you. We are also giving you the tools to verify that trust.