ENGINEERING DEEP DIVE: NEW Framework Laptop Webcam Module (2024)

[@VivekYadav-ds8oz]

We really got a transparent and honest CEO before GTA6

[@creeper6530]

We will get second coming of Jesus (end of world) before GTA6

[@noxar_ad]

Hey at least we will get gta 6 before silksong

[@vivaanreddy8771]

Meanwhile, Carl Pei:😠

[@Maltbrew]

Hahahaha what a funny and original joke! You're a genius!

[@marianf25]

What's most impressing about this video is not that the CEO is so well versed into everything that goes into the laptop (which is how all CEO's should be), but even the marketing content creator also understands that stuff and asks good questions! 🤯

[@steamerSama]

Well he was a engineer in meta quests founding team, so that helps

[@NabekenProG87]

Bro if marketing isn't braindead you know the company is cooking

[@zt9233]

I don’t even need a laptop and I’m prob going to buy one.

[@FR4M3Sharma]

​@@zt9233Send me one man, they're not available in my country.

[@krzysiek2768]

Asking "good questions" is important :)

[@config2000]

The technical breakdown using a white board is most appreciated. Great job team.

[@user-nd1kj8ht7h]

Agree, awesome and proud to be one of their customers

[@MatthewHill]

This is a company I am happy to support.

[@fredlacroix6865]

and nothing phone

[@gmanyyavailable]

Enjoying long-form information dense videos you're doing!

[@joaomendoncayt]

These framework youtube videos are the living proof you don't need high production when you're delivering high value.

[@WyvernDotRed]

The audio clipping throughout is a bit unfortunate but not too distracting. This level of transparency is incredible to see and a large part of why Framework is on top of my considerations for my next problem. Only, I am still satisfied with the ThinkPad e585 I am watching this on, despite it's worn down state and slower 2500U APU. Once I do hit a wall with this machine's capabilities, like I did with my previous phone, I will probably order a Framework with the money I saved up in the meantime without much further consideration. Or I will pick up another ThinkPad, if a modular enough model is available for a significantly better price. The Framework is comparatively expensive after all, though I also plan to replace my desktop with a Framework 16 based computer, if this becomes viable. Or I will build something myself, perhaps with an Intel GPU as I am curious to those and still well served by a power-limited Vega 64. Unfortunately the other options probably are more cost effective and perhaps better, but that does not mitigate the goodwill and status Framework deservedly has. And finally seeing some better camera technology trickle down from smartphones to webcams is cool to see, I do not care for thin bezels at all but definitely appreciate this.

[@FrameworkComputer]

Definitely agreed on the audio quality. We've missed on this on the last couple of videos. We had lav mics on the way, but didn't get them in time for this video. For the next video, we'll have a better setup.

[@noone-ld7pt]

@@FrameworkComputer This right here is why Framework is my favourite company. Consistently looking for feedback and learning from criticism and msitakes, combined with clear and open communication. Absolutely love deepdives into the tech and decisions behind it. Keep it up!

[@yuryzhuravlev2312]

@@FrameworkComputer just ask Linus team record you.

[@jm56585]

The transparency is so refreshing, thanks to those working at Framework for leading the way in making devices that are actually meant to be tinkered with! I'm really excited for this module because although I don't have a framework, I think (maybe??) I can mod it into my old thinkpad and extend its life. I'll definitely be looking for a framework when I'm shopping for a new laptop though

[@cmorche]

Uhmm.... So I think the first obstacle you'll encounter is that fancy cameras like OmniVision require a firmware to be loaded during each boot, which can be a pain if not public.

[@jm56585]

@@cmorche I'd think the firmware is just loaded by the camera controller on the board? The connector for the old webcam module seems to just be USB so I was thinking I could just replace my laptop's current module with it with a simple converter cable.

[@TechOtaku86]

Gotta love Nirav for educating us instead of spreading marketing nonsense! Would really love to support your company through recommending your products but you dont ship to both my home countries despite only being a few hundred kilometers both northeast and south of taiwan :(

[@BenjaminLupton]

Finally looks like a camera that wasn't from 2010! Good work Framework!

[@1da1a172]

I love that they didn't just talk about the technical improvements, they also gave a old/new sample so people can decide if the upgrade is worth it for them. It would be nice to see an example of the old webcam under normal lighting conditions as well.

[@AronGriffis]

It seems like lots of people appreciate this video, but it's missing the only thing I really wanted to see: side-by-side old/new with various lighting conditions.

[@aaronjamt]

I know this probably isn't a priority for Framework right now, but will we see an option to disable the binning and get the full 9.2MP video feed, maybe with an ectool flag or similar? Obviously it's not very useful for video conferencing, but for machine learning applications or similar, it might be more beneficial to have all the raw pixel data accessible to software. I do love seeing the progress being made here and am especially glad this area is being tackled by Framework, as it's clearly been neglected for quite a while.

[@bdot02]

Completely agree. Phone manufacturers boast about how their image sensors are capable of x resolution, but then they do pixel binning and output 1/4 or even lower resolution images. And then there's no way to disable the pixel binning. It would certainly be nice to be able to configure the sensor, even if it came with the danger of bricking the module.

[@MrGamelover23]

Given that this is framework we're talking about here, I wouldn't be surprised if it's possible.

[@thequantumqbe_5474]

11:18 Fun fact: this seemingly strange setup is how the photoreceptors in your eye work- the light passes through your eyes lens, the optical neurons and THEN hits the cells which detect the light

[@fjhskd34u21h3]

That's the eyes of vertibrates, which includes us, sure. But the eyes of cephalopods, octopuses and squids, are actually "the right way around", like the backlit design.

[@egalanos]

It would be good to have an external housing with USB to allow replaced modules to still be used

[@creeper6530]

It's got open CAD drawings, so anyone can try! All you need is break out the pins

[@sheeplord4976]

That would be a pretty cool feature, but I have to imagine that the standard camera controller doesn't implement USB standards, and framework isn't large enough in the industry to justify the suppliers making a brand new and more complex design for such a niche.

[@vmiguel1988]

@@sheeplord4976it is just a USB camera , it does not use DSI bus so you just need a usb cable

[@creeper6530]

@@sheeplord4976 most camera modules are USB. They said it in the video that they're staying at 2.0

[@Epereira56]

Please do more videos like these. Hope framework keeps growing

[@Puntism]

I really do wish Framework every success, I think it's amazing what you guys are doing!

[@kgenkov]

It looks like it's unscripted - in a good way. I love it, so refreshing! And the lady sounds genuinely interested, not trying to fill marketing checkboxes!

[@b130610]

Love to see some technical/product design transparency on these products. I would suggest mastering your audio in mono if you aren't going to do any more in depth post-production though - it's very uncomfortable to listen in headphones when parts of the audio are panned so far to the left :(

[@rilufuzz]

I'm a few months away yet, but i cant wait until i've saved enough to get a Framework!!!

[@frankhuurman3955]

yeah the almost €2000 markup is quite steep for the AMD DIY with the new screen + webcam, I was doubting whether to instantly go for the full version of what I want(bring own OS + own SSD) or get the most basic AMD DIY one and upgrade a tiny bit later but that would already leave me with the entry Ryzen board, the old screen and the old webcam that I'm not going to use anymore just about a year after I bought it. So guess I'll wait a bit more, maybe prices will drop some more in the coming months. I do think the ethernet port is still stupidly expensive though.

[@AidanofVT]

And just $40 for such a nice upgrade! Actually, I don't care enough about my webcam to upgrade, but that's what's great about Framework: I get to choose!

[@aygwm]

Just ordered my new Framework 16 Overkill. First laptop I’ve ever bought with my hard-earned shells. Can’t wait!

[@matthew78917]

Very happy to see this level of transparency as well as simple production style. Quite refreshing from those highly edited product presentation videos you see from all the other big companies these days. Would have been really interesting if it was possible to set your own camera off symbol

[@markvization]

Love the video but I agree with other comments that the audio wasn't quite a good as usual on this video. I really appreciate the content, but perhaps wearing lavalier mics would help keep the audio levels consistent rather than passing that awkward mic back and forth?

[@zt9233]

Yea but. It’s part of the charm. They’re talking shop. They’re not putting together a fake marketing video that costs a tens of thousands to make

[@danielgoldstein6818]

Lab microphones don’t mean phony content. I’d love for better audio - if a video has poor audio I usually don’t listen (this video is an exception because of its fantastic content, and I’m interested in the subject matter.)

[@FANBOY41]

very cool deep dive video!! You done already very good deep dives on the blog! but something like this is also very nice and a good extension of a written article!

[@glukki]

Can't wait to put my hand on the RISC-V motherboard! Even though it's far behind my Mac's Intel CPU performance and miles away from Apple M# CPUs. Yet, I'm preparing to switch from Mac back to Linux on a Framework laptop, by learning NixOS and adopting more Linux-compatible tools 🤘

[@hambroman]

love the Read-Only Memory books in the back

[@kirigami-fold]

man, my friend ordered a Framework laptop for me while I'm traveling. By the time I get to see it, we'll have to order a new set of components for a "zero-day upgrade", it seems!

[@szaszm_]

The older webcam module doesn't look that much worse, it may not be worth to upgrade.

[@KevinBuckham1]

Great news! Time to upgrade and make sure my new order has this camera too. Thanks for the insight into the details!

[@plutos_s]

Great to see that the laptop I bought is alive and evolving. I was lowkey expecting this video to be made with the webcam but the preview at the end was also enough :)

[@YouArentHereYet]

This is pretty fantastic. Thanks for all your hard work!

[@ParzivalHomage]

Ship to INDIA soon please.

[@NyalaHari-z5t]

A really needed laptop for Indian tech enthusiasts. So many of the youth waiting to tinker with a laptop that can have any part replaced.

[@TheBoko7]

If you can replace the touchpad with a Sensel haptic touchpad, that would be wonderful.

[@maxtornogood]

Pretty indepth for a webcam!

[@giomjava]

Absolutely loving the deep dives and Nirav explaining the technical details!! Keep it up!! I've already joined the waitlist!!

[@SerialTchilla]

You guys are awesome innit!

[@Faffe]

Great info. Though you should have shot the whole video on the new webcam!

[@hdtravel1]

Very interesting - Frramework rocks !!!!

[@rimbaud0000]

More of this sort of thing please. Very pleased with my framework 13 but looking forward to continuous improvements

[@Frickolas]

Great talk, but please get lav mics and turn down the gain/turn on a compressor.

[@MrGamelover23]

I wish you guys put this much engineering thought into the speakers. I'd love to see an engineering breakdown on them, because I just want to know why they aren't front-facing.

[@AndreaIppolitoIppo]

Oh I loved her question at 9:58, was just wondering about the same

[@Lethaltail]

I only just noticed the f in the logo has that flattened top bit. Totally can’t unsee.

[@mrcvry]

Exciting! 👍

[@ojassarup258]

Would be nice to hear from other engineers at Framework too!

[@maxmouse3]

Outstanding job, can't wait to get my hands on one! Also it's baffling that $3000 laptops from giant companies still use terrible cameras

[@BSingh-on4qr]

Would like a deep dive on the displays and potential for upgrades

[@the-pink-hacker]

All of these were great questions! Every time I found myself getting slightly lost in the jargon, a question would answer my thoughts.

[@vafixer8885]

I wish this company went public so I could invest. Solid engineering weighted vs anything else and amazing team (especially a passionate knowledgeable CEO who actually cares) letting the product speak for itself I expect great things. Just for the right to repair reasons alone i loved it but now I'm finding even more reasons to love the company more. My only prayer, please make a keyboard on par with thinkpads (possibly try to exceed), the tactile feel of thinkpads is what so many enthusiasts love - myself included, its probably the most important upgrade to me. id pay a hefty premium to get that upgrade and suspect many others would gladly.

[@Phoenix84118]

I hope that never happens. Once a company goes public, all that matters is the stock price and shareholders. Actual innovation and customer value goes out the window.

[@diogocarvalho2934]

Can you make another one diving into the display upgrade?

[@estebanguerrero682]

Love the video and the love for the craft of such an amazing product!

[@iamspencerx]

They got me a macbook pro m1 at my job as a work laptop, and now the 16GB are not enough anymore, and it's impossible to upgrade. Next time I'll ask for a Framework laptop and just upgrade the memory if needed.

[@StuartPBentley]

"Lux" is mistranscribed as "Luts" at 19:37 (and again at 19:51).

[@bansheebacklash3730]

Love what y'all are doing with these laptops. It's still out of my price range at the moment, but I promise you, I'm putting the money together and I will 100% get one at some point.

[@TedTabaka]

Great work all! I sure hope the Chromebook Framework will get a finger-print sensor option or Windows Hello or biometrics options. And here is also hoping for Windows Hello IR Camera for Windows laptops.

[@Prince_of_all_Saiyans]

Hey Nirav...! When r u guys coming to India ? I swear that the Frameworks Laptops will be worshipped like anything....!! 🙌🔥

[@IulianArcus]

I might upgrade just to get rid of that red tint. It was definitely visible in the last comparison

[@thomasballard1753]

Nice. Thank you!

[@blobjair1151]

Amazing! Any possibility to use a USB 3.0 connection in the future for 4K webcams?

[@confusedforreal1534]

Please add timestamps to the videos. Helps a lot.

[@nohandlehere55]

PLEASE allow a way to invoice an order to be able to take advantage of "Tax Free Holidays" for back-to-school! It is a HUGE savings for many and will tip the scale for some of us to upgrade a laptop. For me I am looking at a 16 w/ the eGPU and that can save hundreds...watching this like a hawk!

[@JohnHollowell]

It would be great if you could fix the audio so that the left is on the left and the right is on the right. I think because the audio recorder was held "backward" (at least from the perspective of the camera) and audio channels are swapped from the visuals

[@singatias]

Would love to see a RISC-V laptop!!!

[@Tobias-fl3nb]

They already make one

[@Supermath101]

Or at least they announced it.

[@maxmustermann9858]

Is there a limit on how much this platform „case“ can be improved? So are there any plans to make a complete redesign of everything and learn from past mistakes and implement even more future proof concepts?

[@frankhuurman3955]

perhaps at some point they'll just release "case gen.2" that still fits all the other parts perfectly but has been redesigned for more future proofing/perfection.

[@Demopans5990]

@@frankhuurman3955 By that point, we might see a sort of a standard pop up just like ITX

[@zt9233]

I love this!!!!! Thanks for these discussions!!

[@theodoresmith3353]

According to an LTT video i watched, the real bottleneck is the connection to the CPU. Did i understand that correctly?

[@Tobias-fl3nb]

Not exactly. It is that snapdragon has proprietary image sensing tech on their CPUs that make cameras look better. If framework wanted to do the same, they would need to make an extremely expensive custom chip/software that wouldn't really be worth it.

[@7heMech]

No, watch the vid.

[@theodoresmith3353]

@@Tobias-fl3nb yeah, i didn’t mean that that’s where the improvement comes from for this camera module, i was just wondering if future mainboards might open them up to even better modules. I figure its not out of the question but probably not something they could influence one way or another. That’s a problem for intel and AMD to fix, right?

[@Kurotama_STR]

From what I reckon, laptop cameras have two issues : size (with the bezel shrinking tendencies), which impacts how much light the sensor can get and thus, the quality of the image (as more light means more details), while the second issue would be the lack of a good post processing unit for the webcam, which phones indeed integrate into their multi purpose chip. On laptops and desktops, it would either need to be integrated in/with the camera, or find a way to be added to the motherboard or the cpu. Though I guess a good software base method could at least partially help too.

[@FrameworkComputer]

We didn't dig into this in this video, but one major constraint on laptop camera quality is that it's extremely complex and expensive to use anything but USB 2.0 for the connection between the camera and the mainboard. That means that the 1080p stream has to be compressed down to fit in USB 2.0 Isochronous mode, and compressed using a low latency video codec, typically MJPEG. There are alternatives like using MIPI and leveraging the ISP in the processor, but beyond the cost challenge, this has historically had really poor support in Linux.

[@-indeed8285]

How beautiful it would be if company starts selling smart-watch with test-pad exposed at back-side and with dev-kits to flash / re-program them. I think there is huge pool of user who likes to tinker with hardware/software. What do you think?

[@danialothman]

wish i can learn more hardware stuff from Nirav

[@Netist_]

Is the module the same for the 13 and 16? Or is this module just for the 13?

[@xlion]

Same

[@CarloVaccariPlus]

Still has a center-to-edge color shift... Red at the center and green at the edge.

[@leokappler2282]

About the binning: why wouldn't one pixel with the same area of four smaller pixels have the same sensitivity? I would think if the area is the same, the same number of photons will hit. Why should it help to subdivide the area and then add up the numbers?

[@alfredosilva8086]

Well explained thank you for the information about your product 👍👍👍

[@AlphaKilo09]

I was waiting for the line to say, 'This entire video you have been watching was shot on this laptop's webcam.'

[@microcolonel]

Technical marketing is the right way to go. An army of invested nerds is your best marketing.

[@Torashin1]

Is the Bayer pattern actually in blocks of 4 like he drew? Or does each binned pixel have its own RGB sub-pixels? That would surely make much more sense.

[@stevenclark2188]

Wait, the Bayer pattern is at the lower resolution? I guess that might make sense with lower chroma frequency? And I guess you can't really average pixels if there's only one subpixel of that color in the superpixel area. Or did that accidentally get flubbed? You'd think pulling a Sigma and getting color information in every pixel before demosaicing would improve quality. I do wish it was USB 3 though. MS killing on-controller webcam compression just annihilated the 4k webcam space.

[@pupip55]

I would argue that only since covid people started caring, I thought the general attitude was its easier to buy one if you want one. as most people don't use tablets or laptop cameras, especially on desktops.

[@Soguwe]

How did you manage to make the interview mic sound worse than the webcam mic?

[@memania-]

He can definitely win a staring contest

[@vedicarun9724]

Please bring framework to India with genuine prices

[@xmlthegreat]

Not the best thing to hold a Zoom H4n this way and move it about... Especially with the directional mics. E.g. here the right channel on Nirav's audio is clipping because one of the mics is pointed directly at him, so even with the deadcat the levels are too hot. Maybe a couple of cheap lavs fixed up to the H4n would give better audio consistency. Something like the Hollyland Lark M1 or the more expensive Rode Wireless Go 2. Just a thought.

[@j5689]

Will these support Windows Hello? I didn't really see anything about an IR sensor being mentioned and I think that's usually an integral part of supporting it.

[@Green0Photon]

Thought they were going to say that the interview was done with the new camera. Sadly no. Still looks good though.

[@CocolinoFan]

Great laptop! Why no open source firmware (Coreboot)?

[@teddybearisms2505]

Are you guy for or against DEI HR standards? I would also like to see a bezel without a cam hole.

[@TonyOstrich]

Will it be possible to configure or reflash the firmware? Generally speaking it would be fun to tinker with. I could also see this ability being useful for hobbyists experimenting with machine vision as modifying the binning parameters to suit the application is something we would do when I worked in that field.

[@chun-li-tq6lf]

Framework for president!

[@hypnos_007]

Very interesting.

[@janboomsma9954]

What a company. Bought my 11th framework 3 years ago. Still going strong. Only replaced the hinges once. still going strong.

[@lineax5927]

Great work you guys! I know you are a small team thats mainly focusing on laptops. but i love my framework 13 so much that i wish you guys would make phones. i want a full framework ecosystem. your own linux distro with your perfect minimal design and your own version of android, in the best case a fork of graphene os so that google services are sandboxed and you as the user have the option to manage their permissions. thanks for all of your efforts!

[@3nd0f3arth]

Do x86 chips have image signal processors at all? I think it's the reason why apples m-chips and qualcomm-x-chips usually are outperforming their x86 challengers. Will the risc-v have an isp?

[@floriangassmann272]

can you turn of the pixel binning if you want higher resolution?

[@creeper6530]

I doubt that, since it's probably baked in the driver

[@larryw1815]

You need a "highlights" version that is MUCH shorter.

[@mng7872]

She is THE content creator at Framework. All jokes aside, great to see the CEO not be some figure that sits atop and instead be actually involved in the company this much.

[@BSingh-on4qr]

great transparency, but I have to say, I don't think most of the target audience cares about the webcam compared to other things, and personally would prefer a smaller bezel

[@fifi-fifi-fifi]

I'm 5 minutes in. There's no chance that microphone is being used for audio. Right?

[@krikun98]

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips have the image signal processing module integrated into the SoC and connect to the camera over a more capable interface than USB 2. How would camera module compatibility be handled in the event of a hypothetical ARM Framework Mainboard?

[@niauwu]

Is there a full height size arrow key?

[@matejzima8210]

It would be interesting to see a A/B test the new framework camera vs new camera that comes with Snapdragon Windows machine e.g.: Surface.

[@sainteckes]

I don't think CEOs of other laptop companies can explain how webcams work