Google-owned Motorola's new project Ara will let users build highly modular phones.
Project Ara will enable users to customize the components of their smartphone, which basically means you can purchase a basic phone structure and add modules like battery, keyboard and sensors as you go along.
The idea behind the project is that if one can customize their PC, why not their phones?
"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines," says Paul Eremenko, Motorola's Project Ara Team, in a blog post.
For project Ara, Motorola has collaborated with Dave Hakkens, a Dutch designer who is also the creator of Phonebloks (a modular phone idea). Phonebloks uses detachable blocks to create a "phone worth keeping."
"The market of electronic devices is growing rapidly, but it feels like we are building disposable stuff," says Hakkens. "Every time we make something new we completely throw away the old one. Imagine all the good displays, bluetooths and speakers we have thrown away. I love the connected world that we live in and it's time to set up a universal modular platform that companies work on together."
Project Ara has been in the pipeline for over a year and will look to "drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones."
The project will focus on both the endoskeleton, or endo, and modules.
"The endo is the structural frame that holds all the modules in place," said Eremenko. "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!"
Motorola is currently looking out for Ara Scouts who will conduct research over the next 6 to 12 months regarding the future of the project and the direction it will take, as well as collaborate on the "special missions."
After users sign-up, Motorola will notify them via emails once a month about opportunities where users can share ideas, images and "commentary about topics relating to Project Ara."
The Ara team will also send invitations out to developers and ask them to create modules for the platform.
The alpha release of the MDJ is expected before year end. If you want to become an Ara Scout you can sign-up here.
