Modular Phone, No not modular kitchen :P

I feel this is going to change the world and wanted to share with you all. Every week when I see any technology news there is at least 10 new smart phones with a better specs at a budget price and then I see my mobile which I got last June and envy the new smart phone buyers. It’s not only me, every day when we look our friend’s new mobile a slight part of our sixth sense make us feel envy on the closest friend. But, this is going to be long gone in the near future. Imagine you could replace your camera which does not have full HD video recording with the one that has 4K video recording, or with a night vision camera or a speaker because you don’t need the camera for a party but a loud speaker. What am I talking, here?

I am talking about Project ARA from Google. It is one of those most innovative projects that actually could change the whole smart phone technology and Google claims this type of smart phone is for the 6 Billion people on the planet including the 1 Billion people who already own a smart phone. Everything is confusing right? ARA? Replacing a part of a phone?

The Motorola Project ARA phone

WHAT IS PROJECT ARA?

The project’s concept was originally created by Dave Hakkens who built something called Phonebloks, back in 2013. He made a video on it and asked the viewers to support the concept. Imagine what happened, the video went viral and he got overwhelming support from the people and then collaborated with Google and Motorola (then a Google company) and Project ARA was born. It is a modular smart phone concept where user can design what parts he needs to have for what location or what occasion. These ARA phones contains what they call as the Endoskeleton that has partitions for the blocks or shells (as they call it) that could fit in. Google will make only those endoskeleton and other shells would be made by the smart phone manufacturer. The shells would be held by a magnet to keep them in place. Spiral 1 was the first working prototype that Google showcased on the Google I/O last year. They were successful in assembling all those shells and booting to home screen on a phone which ran Android KitKat. It was followed by the Motorola Project ARA phone or Spiral 2.

PRESENT AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Recently in Jan 2015 Google held a conference for developers which was said to be attended by around 3300 developers to develop and understand this project. And in March, during the Mobile World Congress, 2015, Yezz, a small phone manufacturing company show cased the shells that are built for its ARA phone. The phone appeared to be running on Android Lollipop. They say their first phone would be released within 6 months. They are working on different concepts that allows you to use your phone as any device. Recently, a radiation sensor shell was constructed for the modular phone. The possibilities are endless once this project is commercialized.

 

 This modular phone concept can not only revolutionize the whole smart phone industry but also other electronics like the Laptops and TVs. If this project is to be a failure, I would say because we are not ready for it, yet. But, if it becomes a success then it is going to be a great threat for other smart phone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung.

Watch the project ARA promo video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=intua_p4kE0.