A concept that allows users to upgrade their existing smartphone with new components has been developed by the Google owned Company Motorola.The concept called Ara allow users to upgrade individual components of their devices without having to buy a new handset every other year, orders would have to be placed online in a move that could impact retail sales of smartphones.
Users will be able to replace components such as the camera, processor, storage or even WiFi hardware by simply removing one “block” of their smartphone.
Writing on the Motorola blog, Paul Eremekno – part of the Ara team – said the firm had been working on the project for over a year, and had recently taken inspiration from Phonebloks, the modular smartphone concept which garnered widespread attention last month.
“A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter – or something not yet thought of,” Eremenko said.
Eremenko claimed that Motorola and the Phonebloks community would work together on the common goal of creating this modular platform.
“Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones,” he said. “To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it’s made of, how much it costs, and how long you’ll keep it.”
The project intends to allow anybody to create any kind of module they desire, as long as it fits into the Ara base “endoskeleton”, which connects all the other components together.
Motorola claims that the concept eliminates waste and delivers cost savings of not replacing an entire smartphone every time a component falls behind the latest technological development.
