The Other Half Returns — Community Innovation Program

[Jolla]

Hi there,

As we approach selling total 5,000 units (), we’re thrilled to announce Batch #3: The Other Half is coming back if we reach 10,000.

Just like we defined the next gen Jolla Phone together with the community, we want to design the new The Other Half together with you. We’ll share what’s technically possible, you’ll vote on what to build, and together we’ll create something unique.

What is The Other Half?

The Other Half (TOH) is a swappable back cover that does more than protect your phone — it transforms it. The original Jolla Phone (2013) pioneered this with open I2C interface and NFC-enabled covers that changed themes and behaviour just by snapping on — we call those Ambiences. Further, as we released the specs and 3D drawings in the The-Other-Half DevKit it enabled the community to make their own TOH’s. This was something Jolla was truly pioneering in the industry, way before the bigger brands explored similar ideas.

The original The Other Half concept from year 2013. The Other Half Keyboard (aka TOHKBD) was one of the highly successful community projects (credits: Dirk, Kimmo and Andrew).

The (new) Other Half

With the new Jolla Phone, we’re taking TOH even further — and we’ll open source the hardware and software interface specs so anyone can design, 3D-print, or produce their own modules. Primarily we plan that the new The Other Half interface would be based on I³C.

Possible TOH Categories

From simple to advanced — vote on what interests you most! We’re excited about easy starters like an Ambience & design appearance, alongside with ambitious projects like an e-ink display, a heat camera or a barcode reader. And hey, this could even enable the 3.5mm audio jack!

Poll 1: Primary Use Cases For which primary and secondary categories would you like to see a TOH? You may choose up to 3.

• Simple Utility — Aesthetic themes
• Digital Wellbeing — Focus modes, notification filtering, distraction blocking
• Productivity — Keyboard, work/personal separation
• Smart Home & IoT — Zigbee addon, IoT radios, device authentication
• Creative & Media — E-ink display, photography tools
• Travel & Lifestyle — Data storage, transit cards
• Developer Tools — GPIO breakout
• Other (leave a comment below)

Poll 2: Feature Priority

• Sensors: temp, air, environment
• Connectivity: LoRa, BLE, UWB, GPS
• Focus/wellbeing modes
• Physical confirm buttons
• E-ink display, small OLED
• Developer GPIO breakout
• Multimedia TOH: speakers, LED arrays
• Industrial: RS485, barcode reader
• DAC for analog audio i/o
• Productivity: keyboards, stylus adapters
• Heat camera
• Extra battery
• Zigbee/IoT radios
• Other, please leave a comment in below

Poll 3: How much bandwidth you think would be enough between the phone and TOH?

Considering that more bandwidth means, more complex TOH designs, more power consumption and higher price of TOH’s

• 100kb/s
• 1Mb/s
• 10Mb/s
• More, please add comments about the use case
• I don’t know

Poll 4: Attaching mechanism

What do you think would be the best way to attach the TOH?

• Simple clips, as it was in Jolla Phone (2013)
• I’m happy to do even some screws if it makes the experience better
• Combination of the above
• Other, please leave a comment in below

Poll 5: Where Should We Start?

• Start Simple — Ambiences first or visual covers first
• Go Balanced — Medium complexity from the start
• Aim High — Jump straight to added displays/sensors/cameras
• Mix It — Let the votes decide

Poll 6: Price point

Considering all above and your preferences, how much would you be ready to pay for your The Other Half providing value adding functionality?

• Less than €50
• €50 - €99
• €100 - €199
• More than €200

Poll 7: How often would you change the TOH?

• Multiple time a day
• Once a day
• Once a week
• Once a month
• Less often than once a month

Sci-Fi Corner — Dream Big!

Not everything has to be practical! We love hearing your most ambitious, out-there ideas — even if they’re years away from being possible. Who knows, today’s sci-fi might be tomorrow’s TOH.

Example:

“Selfy TOH” — A TOH that turns the phone into a quadcopter drone to take selfies! Or maybe more like a pet that just flies and follows you around, and you could talk to it

Drop your wildest ideas below — no judgment, just imagination!

Use case name → Brief description → Key features → Why it matters

Do not forget to share your wild pictures. Pictures would be just awesome!

Timeline

Milestone	Target
Community ideation	Dec 13 - Jan 15
Voting closes	Jan 15, 2026
Open-source specs	Q1 2026
TOH prototypes	Q2-Q3 2026

Let’s build The Other Half together!

[d.d]

OMG, Jolla is really back now!

[Bohdan]

Amazing news!

If TOH comes back, it will be available for buyers of all batches, right?

[feathers]

Ooh, neat! I probably wont use it much, but I can definitely see myself getting a keyboard attachment, and it’s generally nice to have the ability to augument the phone’s capabilities.
Just hope the added complexity doesn’t delay the phones themselves.

[affe_null]

Good idea, I hope it is successful! But I’m a bit disappointed by Jolla’s use of AI-generated graphics.

[Jolla]

Yes, will be available for all customers.

[pauligrinder]

Cool that you’re planning to bring this feature back. It was a very cool idea on the original Jolla phone, but very under-utilized.

Two things I’d want from it would be QI charging (unless it’s already integrated in the phone itself) and an extra battery TOH which I would use when going to festivals or camping etc where power might not be available all the time.

Some extra ideas:

A multi I/O audio interface would be really cool for music recording on the go.

Improved camera TOH? Maybe something with huge zoom lens?

[rgp]

For day to day use I’d like a keyboard OH, a wireless charging OH, and an e-ink OH which would have scroll and next page buttons

[jojumaxx]

Mini Beamer. Project display to a wall to watch videos or work with a big view. Some chinese phones and tablets offer this and I think it’s a cool feature opposing e.g. double foldable phones…

[Systematics]

Even if I follow Jolla’s journey since the beginning, I was not aware about the The Other Half project. First of all it sounds very cool! I also like that you are planning to open source the specifications. This is the way, how to make a project long life and open for everyone. This and the open source process of the other jolla components is such a great turnout in the SFOS world. Thank you a lot!

I have voted, and everything sounds very interesting! Especially the keyboard would be a dream for me! But also the connectivity ports are making food for thoughts about meshtastic…

Maybe I am a little bit hyped, but the future never looks so promising for SFOS - finally

[Bohdan]

Awesome!
I just hope that 10 000 pre-orders is possible.
E-ink cover would be truly amazing

[yusssufff]

I ticked “Other” on Pool 1 with this priority:

Audio.

Meaning for exemple a TOH with 3.5mm Jack + good stereo speakers.

That also adds to durability…Some people mentionned last weeks in this forum about metal particules damaging speakers and microphones, here would come the easy replace .

So anyhow, feel free to like the present message if “Audio Priority” (3.5mm Jack + Good Speakers) would be yours too for the TOH (possibly also FM Radio…anything related to a bump up in audio, 3.5 jack being the first obvious upgrade, with stereo speakers coming second, l guess FM radio third).

Well done Jolla! As always surprising us with innovative options

[rgp]

I think a cheap 3.5mm audio jack with an extra usb-c port Other Half would probably bring in 2000 sales just going off the replies on the other threads!

… and if they could make a <5 inch display OH, that could seal the deal for the last 2000

[ApB]

It was pointless then its pointless now.

Keep it simple and work on other stuff that are needed more for the OS.

No need to repeat past mistakes.

[mr_jrt]

Attachment-wise, the clips on the originals worked really well, and were fine for simple covers, but I would be concerned with them being the sole connection for a heavy cover with expensive components in it. I’d be tempted to suggest that for those, a simple sliding latch or two of some variety at the ends would be sufficient to really lock the cover on. Whilst you could have optional screws for those sorts of covers, you’re never going to have a screwdriver with you when you are out and about.

[KuroNeko]

I used to love the solar panel TOH. It doesn’t really do that much, so it is more of a gimmick, but as long as I can build it myself with the interface, I am happy!

Keyboard would be nice in some cases, but tbh I never really used it much. I really like dedicated audio jacks, so those would be a priority for me, if they will not fit on the phone (but if you are already adding a TOH port, can you really not add a headphone jack? :)).

A threads radio is also becoming a higher priority for me nowadays, so I could see some benefit in that. And small additional displays are always fun.

The weird shot would be a power supply or multimeter, that I could use on the go. I quite often forget those at home and it would be pretty cool to have some lower quality alternative at hand.

Some storage for cards would also be useful and probably be rather easy to achieve.

Also, the clips on the previous iteration worked well, but as I didn’t switch them that often, I am also fine with some torx screws. Possibly those could also be optional, so that bigger TOHs would be able to use screws, but the lighter ones would just clip on for ease of use?

[Mister_Magister]

Okay please hear me out, I complained about lack of jack but this would solve the issue and even more because I could put in a professional DAC and AMP in there BUT, some songs require more than 10Mb/s, 10Mb/s is bare minimum as most normal songs go over 1Mb/s

What do you mean more than 10Mb/s?

okay while most of my PCM songs top out at 6Mb/s, technically if you were to have 6 channel 352.8kHz song it would absolutely go over 15Mb/s. But I also do have this

While I’m not sure I can send DSD over i³c 10Mb/s is prooooobably fine

[ric9k]

Beautifully great exiting super cool news!!!

-e-ink + scroll buttons
-FM radio
-3.5 jack
-And, of course, a keyboard like in the old good N900 time!

A solar panel is also a good idea.

[nthn]

SolarTOH was a wacky one but I’d love to see it return: a solar panel to charge your phone. Of course due to physics it could never replace regular charging and was unusable (for charging) in warm weather, but it looked like something from the future. Other TOHs related to power would be nice as well: a massive extra battery for built-in powerbank, magnetic charging, and so on.

TOHKBD was also a great idea, though somewhat flawed due to design constraints.

I like the idea of the multimedia focussed TOHs, as long as it doesn’t mean e.g. the phone’s speaker(s) will be of poor quality because “people who want decent sound will just get a multimedia TOH”. I know we can’t have everything, but a weak and shrill-sounding speaker makes any device feel cheap.

[Fellfrosch]

Unfortunately most added hardware will need software to utilize it. So it’s a little bit hard for me to wish things, cause I’m not a coder.

I would find it great to have an IR Diode inside a OH so that I can use my phone as a remote control.

I’m a HW keyboard lover. But I’m not sure if that works out very nicely. I had that on my Jolla 1. The problem was, that the balance simply was bad. I had the N900 and a Pro1. If you could reach such a usability, I would immediately vote for a keyboard. But I have big doubts on that.

So at the the moment I think a battery extension would be my favourite. Especially because there is probably no extra software necessary.