Releasing the Fairphone ringtone

The new Fairphone ringtone is sure to put a smile on your face whenever you receive a call. Just look how happy it makes the team at the Fairphone office! For second batch Fairphone buyers, the ringtone is already included on your new phone called “Sunbeam.” For those of you who bought a first edition Fairphone, you can download the ringtone now – scroll down to the bottom of this post for instructions.

Developing a Fairphone sound

When we first started designing the Fairphone, we didn’t have too much time to work on our sound identity, meaning the associations you may get with the sounds and music related to Fairphone.

But if you listen to our new ringtone, it might sound surprisingly familiar. Last year, we found a cheerful little tune to use in the video for our first pre-sales campaign. Slowly, this bouncy, upbeat song started to become a part of the Fairphone identity. It found its way into additional videos, and we heard that even some Fairphone community members found ways to use the song on their phones as a ringtone.

So this year, when we decided that it was high time to give all Fairphone owners access to a ringtone – one that could help you recognize a fellow owner from afar – the choice seemed obvious. We contacted the people who provided us the song where we originally found the tune and purchase the rights to use it as a ringtone for your phones. But not so fast – there wasn’t a license available that could cover our specific situation! It was time to go back to the drawing board.

We decided to track down the creator of the original tune to see if he or she could help. Our digging led us to a small company called Audio Grabaciones in Medellín, Colombia. As the only native Spanish speaker in the office, product strategist Miquel made the awkward first call to inform a complete stranger that we wanted to use his song on our Fairphones. Our contact in Colombia used his composer’s magic to make us an original tune and a new version of the song just for us. Now we have our first Fairphone ringtone and are excited to share it with you!

Download the Fairphone ringtone

Second batch Fairphones come with this ringtone pre-installed, so there’s no need to do anything. It should automatically be set as your default ringtone for incoming calls.

If you purchased a first edition Fairphone last year, you’ll need to download the ringtone yourself. There are two different options:

1. If you haven’t already, install the Fairphone Cherry 1.6 Storage Upgrade. Once you do this, the new ringtone will automatically be set as your default ringtone.
2. If you have ONLY installed the Cherry 1.6 update (and not the storage upgrade), you’ve got the ringtone called “Sunbeam” but you’ll need to set it as your default ringtone. To do that, follow our tutorial on setting your ringtone.

We hope you enjoy the new ringtone as much as we do! And if also inspires you to get up and dance, don’t be afraid to post a video and tag it with #WeAreFairphone.