Project Ara: Google's Modular Smartphones (Phonebloks, anyone?)

Fancy HTC's amazing Boomsound speakers on your iPhone? Is your old Galaxy S3 too slow for gaming? Well, Google plans to make a free, open hardware platform codenamed Project Ara where you can add any feature or specifications that you want. In simpler terms, you can customize your phone. Remember the Phonebloks concept that surfaced half a year ago?

If Project Ara sounds very similar to Phonebloks, it is because it is. When Google sold Motorola to Lenovo, Google kept some of it for itself. It still holds Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group where Project Ara is being co-developed by Phonebloks.

Project Ara: It looks like completing a puzzle.

Time explains that Google plans to create a "grayphone", which is a customizable exoskeleton that only comes with a screen, a frame and WiFi connectivity. From there, users can add anything they want, and the exoskeleton would only cost $50.

It won't be as easy to mount the components as the picture suggests.

The grayphone will house an on-board app that allow users to tweak soft design elements. Users would also be able to buy physical components from kiosks. These kiosks will not only contain parts, but also tools to mount them onto your exoskeleton device.

Google will offer 3 sizes of exoskeleton: mini, medium and jumbo. Project Ara, or whatever the final product is called, will have an aluminum frame, networking circuitry and battery. Each skeleton will have several modules to mount your connectors. The medium version can house 10 connectors.

The Project Ara Developers' Conference will be held this Spring (March-May) to brief developers on the novel concept. Google is serious about this.


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Written by: Kheng Wei Ang