Modular smartphone

A modular smartphone is a smartphone made using different components that can be independently upgraded or replaced in a modular design. This aims to reduce electronic waste, lower repair costs and increase user comfort.

The most important component is the main board, to which others (such as cameras or batteries) are attached. These are packaged in easy-to-remove modules which can be replaced as needed without having to rework the soldering. Components could be obtained from open-source hardware stores.

Desktop computers that used tower cases could easily swap parts such as hard drives, memory, and graphics cards. Among early mobile devices, the Handspring Visor PDA had a Springboard Expansion Slot which could give it the capabilities such as a phone, GPS, a modem, or a camera - but only one at a time. The Israeli startup Modu created a phone+screen core that could be added to various cases that gave the device features such as a keyboard or camera; the company failed and sold its patents to Google in 2011.

Phonebloks was the first modular smartphone concept to attract widespread attention. Later in 2013, Motorola Mobility, then a subsidiary of Google, unveiled Project Ara, a concept for a modular smartphone inspired by the Phonebloks concept. The project was retained by Google when it sold Motorola to Lenovo, and underwent further development.

In late 2014, the Finnish tech startup Circular Devices Oy announced the PuzzlePhone project, with phones that can be personalized at both operating system and hardware levels. It has received the support of Fraunhofer IZM and was scheduled for release in 2015. However, the release of PuzzlePhone has been pushed to 2017 due to missing funding.

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Wikipedia