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Google Project Ara to release modular smartphone next month

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Do you think modular phones will become the norm in the future?

  • No

  • Yes, in about 3 years

  • Yes, in about 5 years

Results are only viewable after voting.
 
The designs are looking more polished, but I'm not counting on success. I honestly think the LG G5's modularity could be more successful than Ara.

Modular smartphones are much like Linux on the desktop: there's only a small subset of the market that really wants it, but that group is convinced that everyone else wants it, too. I think people are more interested in the fundamentals (long battery life, good camera, solid performance) than the idea that they can replace individual components on a whim.
 
I don't think it'll catch on at all. I could be very wrong, but no way I want to have to keep track of modules and my phone both... No CPU upgrades, no video upgrades, hard pass.
 
I think the only reason this idea hasn't been killed long ago is because Google doesn't want to hurt some engineer's feelings.
 
Artdeco said:
I don't think it'll catch on at all. I could be very wrong, but no way I want to have to keep track of modules and my phone both... No CPU upgrades, no video upgrades, hard pass.
Click to expand...
Yeah, even with the tech crowd I don't see this being a success. Definitely not with the general population. Maybe I'm wrong and they'll surprise me, but I'm not expecting much
 
The features are pretty good. However, I wonder about the battery life. How many hours ara can be used before it needs to charge.
 
haedon said:
The features are pretty good. However, I wonder about the battery life. How many hours ara can be used before it needs to charge.
Click to expand...

Well, you can replace all the cool modules with batteries, so it'll suck as a smartphone, or have terrible battery life, your choice.
 
Artdeco said:
Well, you can replace all the cool modules with batteries, so it'll suck as a smartphone, or have terrible battery life, your choice.
Click to expand...

I don't even think that's true anymore with the latest redesign. Now the frame consists of:
"The Ara frame contains the CPU, GPU, antennas, sensors, battery and display, freeing up more room for hardware in each module. We are looking to module makers to create technology never before seen on smartphones."

Sounds like the battery isn't even swappable anymore to me. With the Nexus designs, it doesn't surprise me at all that Google would make a module phone and still give us a fixed battery.
 
gorcorps said:
I don't even think that's true anymore with the latest redesign. Now the frame consists of:
"The Ara frame contains the CPU, GPU, antennas, sensors, battery and display, freeing up more room for hardware in each module. We are looking to module makers to create technology never before seen on smartphones."

Sounds like the battery isn't even swappable anymore to me. With the Nexus designs, it doesn't surprise me at all that Google would make a module phone and still give us a fixed battery.
Click to expand...

Why can't there be add-on battery modules? I don't how big the built in battery is, but you would definitely need one to be able to hot swap batteries.
 
Red Storm said:
Why can't there be add-on battery modules? I don't how big the built in battery is, but you would definitely need one to be able to hot swap batteries.
Click to expand...

You can still add individual battery modules from what it sounds like, so that's good. But the core battery that comes with the frame doesn't look swappable like it was in the early versions of the project. I guess that's better than nothing, and hopefully they have "module chargers" so you can have several full modules ready to go and swap them if needed. The main battery looks to be fixed though.

If the system is smart enough to use the module power first, and then the core battery 2nd that would be nice. Or maybe the modules could charge the internal battery themselves once connected.
 
Surely by having the phone break down into modules you are wasting loads of space in any already constrained environment for plastic packaging and interconnects? Smartphones are consumer alliances. Google would be wise to consider them that way rather than like the old desktop PC paradigm.
 
Honestly the more I think about it, the more I think this makes the most sense in tablet form. There's so much more space on a tablet to utilize a system like this.
 
Sad. The Moto Z has been a nice step in the modular direction. It definitely beats LG's (horrible) implementation.
 
It's not so much that LG and Moto are carrying the torch as that Ara itself was very much an optimistic project. It came from that same mentality that is convinced Linux on the desktop will succeed any decade now: I like customization and tinkering, therefore everyone else will too, right? Well, no.

Most people are happy with closed, fixed designs so long as they work well, and even basic modularity has limited appeal. And Ara, as thoughtful as it looks to be, smacks of complexity and (maybe) mediocrity.
 
Sad day :'-(
I would have loved to build a no compromise phone tailored to exactly what I want. Even if I paid considerably more for it, it likely would have made me happy for twice as long as typical phones released by the manufacturers, and if I wanted to I can just upgrade individual components like I do on a PC.
 
poofyhairguy said:
That makes sense. They don't need to push modularity when LG and Moto have those features in their flagships.
Click to expand...

LG and Moto opted for the worst-of-both-worlds approach. There's no demand for expensive addons for semi-modular phones. They'll be writing off their semi-modular phones in a year or two as failures.
 
LG will 100% do as you say, as the G5 is a crappy modular phone. But Moto is saying they will for sure not only do it again next year but make it so this year's expensive addons still work on next year's phone.

Plus the projector addon kicks ass honestly so it might do well year one.
 
I understand LG/Moto's modularity is just baby steps compare to what we were promised originally with the project Ara, but i just dont see something like that coming to fruition and be inter-operable without issues for the long haul. Software and hardware are constantly changing and you're expected to make a piece of hardware with certain software-parameter be future proof for 2, 3, 4yrs down the line and play well with other, newer interconnected pieces?

Do we have some level of modularity like that in the real world that is heavily commercialized? We could take cars for example and how manufacturers would rummage the same parts bin to build different cars, but you're talking about a knob here, a handle there, etc. I dunno, i'm being optimistic, but I just dont see it from an economy of scales standpoint.
 
How many modular laptops are there?

The problem is the tech is focused on portability, to go modular, too many compromises have to be made.
 
The only thing that makes real sense from a modular standpoint of a cellphone is two things.

1) Battery

2) Camera

By having a true modular battery, you can have a primary battery, and then a 2nd "stackable battery" which increases the thickness of the phone. Why is this prefered over a battery case? Because you only get about 60% of the battery case mAH since the 2nd battery is just refilling the 1st battery and about 40% of the battery is loss. A true modular battery could have pins that directly connect to the phone.

The 2nd thing that makes sense for a phone that is modular is a 2nd camera, especially a camera with a much bigger sensor size (and thus much better low light performance if you keep the megapixels in a reasonable 8 to 20 range but you double or quadruple the sensor size). You can also do things like optical zoom. Aka something like the sony qx10 or qx100.

But swappable cpus, gpus, screens, radios never really made sense for modular phones. They are too well integrated that the benefits of a modular part for these just never really made sense.
 
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