Esim on Xperia 10 iii (and other SFOS devices)

General
1

Just wanted to let others know that esim.me cards work nicely with SFOS - few months ago I migrated back to SFOS from Android and I was using an esim there and I wanted to find some sophisticated solution instead of having my esim changed for boring old sim.

You will need an Android device to load your esim profile to the esim.me sim but after that you can use it in your SFOS device no problem.

I ordered the OMNI 15 because back then the wording was a little bit ambiguous and I was worried that I could only use it in the Android phone I configured it in, but now it seems they cleared it up by stating “Manage on a single device, USE on ANY device with a SIM card slot” so it seems you might go for the cheapest option (though it seems they purposely lock up the possibility of using multiple esim.me cards unless you buy the OMNI variant so if you plan on using 2 of their cards you still need the OMNI).

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2

Great so instead of just using sim and plug in right away into the device you want to use, you need to fiddle with two phones just to get the basic functionality. So what was easy peasy now became overcomplicated.

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I mean, no one forces you to use it. It was a better solution for me, if you prefer plastic SIMs, go ahead!

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4

On esim.me I read, that you can store several profiles on that card.
Does that provide (dual/multiple) SIM functionality, or do you have to switch current profile via Android, and hence only one profile is usable on Sailfish OS?

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Except of phone manufacturers

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You have to switch them using the Android app, so no, not really usable as a multiple sim functionality. Someone more knowledgeable could probably hack it to write the data directly to the eSIM.me card, it uses some standard protocol.

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there’s also 5ber, which is way cheaper

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Can you clarify that either:
a) You have android on your SFOS, and the app doesn’t work
b) You don’t have android on sfos, so you couldn’t try the app

Do you have one, Remote?

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yes, I do…1

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Does the s/w work in sfos android to change/add esim?
Can the phone use two carriers esims in one 5ber at the same time, or does it just use one active esim per 5ber?

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12

no

yes. it’s just a regular sim, that has variable “outside” profile

PS there’s a project that seems to allow to change esims on it from a PC with a generic sim card reader (5$ on aliexpress), but I haven’t checked it out yet

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The app doesn’t and cannot work, it needs the APIs that make it possible to write data to the SIM card and Sailfish OS simply does not implement them for the Android subsystem.

I’m of the opinion that it can work if someone writes an app to do it, but I don’t know the specifics.

Edit: This is an article with the technical stuff about how it works, though someone more knowledgeable than me would have to implement it.

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14

It would be very interesting to be able to do this directly with Sailfish or via the Android from AppSupport, especially given that eSIM are very useful when traveling to different countries, avoiding having to buy a SIM in the destination

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I wonder if one could compile lpac for Sailfish:

PCSC Lite, one of the dependencies of lpac, seems to be already available for Sailfish:

 libpcsclite1-1.8.10-1.1.1.bso.aarch64  PC/SC Smart Card Library
 pcsc-lite-1.8.10-1.1.1.bso.aarch64     PC/SC Smart Cards Library
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Someone already did: eSIM and Sailfish OS - #36 by tvall

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Thank you. It was a bit hard to find but I eventually downloaded the binary.

It’s currently thowing an error, though:
No APDU driver found

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Actually, there is, for example 9esim.com with standard eUICC. It might be possible to add/delete profiles when SIM is inserted if modem supports this
But in worst case scenario… just bring USB card-reader with you and use miniLPA (and then STK/SIM menu to switch existing profiles)

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19

Someone on the forum compiled the necessary tools for Sailfish and made it work on a Xperia 10 III (I think), so it would be interesting to know if the new Jolla Phone will support this as well.

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It might be possible to add/delete profiles when SIM is inserted if modem supports this

I use esim.me and eiotclub.com (I get the latter from amazon discounted on prime days).
Both can be managed as generic eUICC if needed (esimme forbids that in their T&Cs) in addition to their own apps (I’ve only tried android).
One of my use cases is to use both with quectel modems and I can manage profiles (download/install, activate/deactivate, remove) that way.
I haven’t used them with a card reader so can’t comment there.

I use them with SFOS in an XA2 as my daily driver as well with no issues for the last 2 years (but need to swap the sim into andoid mobile or router to manage the profiles).

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21

If there is real demand and the lpac binary actually works, I might be tempted buy such a SIM out of pure curiosity and create a profile manager GUI for Sailfish :slight_smile:

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