from the I-sense-a-home-project-coming-on dept.
IEEE Spectrum has an article on the Google Ara project, due for a "market pilot" release in 2015. Project Ara is the basis for a modular mobile phone ecosystem, where the end user can dynamically swap hardware modules to upgrade or alter the configuration of the smartphone:
you’ll plug everything into an “endoskeleton” that has built-in electronics to manage the flow of data and distribute power among modules. This supporting framework will also contain a tiny backup battery, which can keep the phone alive while you swap a dead battery module for a charged one. While Google will build the endoskeleton, the module design will be left to independent developers. Members of the design team expect that a basic Ara phone could be built from materials and components that cost between US $50 and $100. The retail cost of the phone could, of course, be more, depending on the specific modules the customer chooses.
The Ara Homepage has some additional details, and information on the Module Developer Kits, and although they're not formally linked there's some overlap with the Phonebloks project which has similar goals and contains news and information links.
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Google's Project Ara is an effort to create a modular smartphone. Users can dynamically swap hardware modules to upgrade or alter the configuration of the phone. It is scheduled to debut in Puerto Rico in the second half of 2015 for testing. Now SolidEnergy has announced a high-density battery module for the platform:
Module makers for Project Ara are already lining up to create third-party modules for the platform, and one of the more interesting ones is SolidEnergy, which promises to make revolutionary batteries that have twice the capacity of current batteries.
SolidEnergy is an MIT startup with $4.5 million in funding, and it has 12 employees who have been working on this new technology for the past three years. The company has developed an ultra-thin metal anode that has twice the density of the graphite and silicon anodes commonly used in smartphone batteries."Our battery basically makes the Project Ara phone more practical," said SolidEnergy founder and CEO Dr. Qichao Hu in an interview. "Right now, one of the major challenges with this phone is that the battery life is too short."
Because the company can just sell its own battery modules to consumers and because its batteries can store twice as much energy than the competitors, SolidEnergy has chosen to make batteries for Project Ara at first. Project Ara only has room for so many modules, and the battery module isn't particularly large in size. That makes high storage capacity very compelling. SolidEnergy will begin commercializing its own batteries in 2016. Batteries targeted at electric vehicles will follow in 2017.
(Score: 1) by steveha on Tuesday December 30 2014, @11:59PM
I can just picture the iFixit teardown.
Tools: None. Step 1: Take apart the phone. The end. Repairability Score: 10 out of 10.
Okay okay, they probably will then tear down the individual modules. (Which will probably get a repairability score of 0 out of 10.)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday December 31 2014, @12:57AM
I can just picture the iFixit teardown.
I can just picture the reviews:
Reception score: 0 out of 10. The radio module came loose in my pocket, causing me to not receive calls.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by VitalMoss on Wednesday December 31 2014, @04:20AM
The Ara uses some sort of clip or screw to hold each module in place, from what I've heard.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday December 31 2014, @06:19AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday December 31 2014, @12:54PM
The Ara uses some sort of clip or screw to hold each module in place, from what I've heard.
From TFA:
At the first Ara Developers Conference in April 2014, Google announced that it would use electropermanent magnets to connect the endoskeleton and modules. Modules will be held in place magnetically while in use. To remove one, you’ll use an app to send a brief surge of electric current through the magnets that hold it, altering their magnetization enough to free the module from the frame.
(Score: 1) by VitalMoss on Friday January 02 2015, @08:08AM
Thanks, I didn't RTFA, just using older knowledge.
(Score: 1) by steveha on Wednesday December 31 2014, @12:10AM
The Handspring Visor was designed to have a swappable module, called a "Springboard". For a while there really was a thriving ecosystem of companies offering modules for the Visor. Wikipedia claims that "the impractical requirement of carrying around multiple modules, not to mention the potential impact on delicate pins, prevented widespread adoption" but I'm not sure I agree; I owned multiple Springboard accessories and I don't think I was that unusual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springboard_Expansion_Slot [wikipedia.org]
I always wanted a Visor module that provided a voltmeter, or even (dream big!) an oscilloscope. I did buy an MP3 player [visorcentral.com].
One of the clever things about the Springboard design: it used a standard connector, the connector from then-common PCMCIA cards. The cost of engineering a new Springboard wasn't too high.
How expensive will it be to engineer a Project Ara module? The connector sounds completely unprecedented: two power pins and four non-contact coils for inductive data transfer?!?
I hope somebody makes a "breadboard" module that is easy to hack to make one-off new modules.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 31 2014, @09:42AM
I assure you, merely having owned a springboard qualifies you as unusual. Owning accessories puts you in Sheldon Cooper country.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 05 2015, @11:33PM
My dad used to have one. Now I have it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday December 31 2014, @12:19AM
If this makes it possible (economically) to get a processor without the code signing bit set. It would be splendid!
Perhaps even enable a controllable bridge between the radio modem and the main processor to prevent any security breach that way.
It would make it possible to make your own installation without any caveats or forced bootstrap from the previous factory installation. And even enable you to control what kind of code that can run on your hardware.
(Score: 2, Informative) by tftp on Wednesday December 31 2014, @07:07AM
What's the cost of a simple PCB and a simple aluminum cast part? A dollar?
I'm not able to imagine anyone reselling or buying those components. People are usually not that much in love with their phones. Besides, in most cases there is a better module on the market for about the same price - why to buy an old one? The market of old notebooks is not exactly thriving.
Failing to imagine. I have MP3 players everywhere. They are nearly free. Why would I want to tear it out of the phone?
About 100% of the population wants a phone that they can use, not a phone that they need to put together. The complete lack of mad success of Openmoko over a sealed can from Apple makes this into a proven fact. There is plenty of customization that people do with bumper cases, desktops, ringtones and selection of software. Most of it is targeted toward an external viewer, for social reasons. Why would anyone among them want to customize parts that are invisible?
Unfortunately, inductive coupling consumes FAR MORE power and board space and silicon than a simple wire. There is no usability advantage here.
I wear my fitness tracker on a wrist. How exactly is Mr. DeRossett proposing to mount a modular phone there? As a rule, individual, custom made devices are a better fit for a function. There is a cost of making a multifunction device. For example, in ST a phaser and a tricorder are never built into one device - though, actually, it would be quite handy for those poor redshirts that always get eaten by the object of their tricording.
It definitely makes sense to diagnose a disease with a Rube Goldberg machine that nobody can tell if it works or not. Build your own blood sugar meter and inject yourself with insulin using those readings! What can possibly go wrong? :-) Besides, plenty of medical devices require external sensors; existing sensors, like Runtastic or Polar heart rate sensors, simply talk Bluetooth to the phone.
Then the retail cost would be on par with best Android phones, or with Apple phones. Given that these are already loaded with gadgets, and the rest is a short USB OTG cable, or a Bluetooth, or a NFC link away, I am not entirely sure who is going to buy these phones, and why. The example of replacing one bad camera with another bad camera before going on expensive vacation is not entirely wise - you'd be better off spending 0.01% of your trip expenses on a real camera with a decent lens. Hell, even GoPro has WiFi and can link up with your phone! Cramming all this into a tiny slot on the phone is unnecessary, limiting, and simply expensive.
(Score: 1) by magamo on Wednesday December 31 2014, @01:07PM
I think for me, there is an appeal, in that I could in theory put together a modular phone with decent specs and a hardware keyboard. So long as someone makes a decent keyboard module, I'll likely end up getting an Ara at some point after they go to market. I know that I am in the minority, but I still love my hardware keyboards, and hate the idea of moving to a phone without one. Ara, at least for now, keeps my hopes alive that something better may be coming for me on the horizon.... Though I dread to see how a keyboard module might work with this thing.
(Score: 1) by Gertlex on Wednesday December 31 2014, @08:17PM
I like this idea... Do the e-ink keyboard that is on the Samsung Alias 2, and make it a detachable cover a la a Microsoft Surface (but in this case rigid connection). If you want to type, you have a keyboard and a horizontal screen, and if you want to smartphone, pop keyboard off and then back on to the back of the phone.
(Score: 2) by karmawhore on Wednesday December 31 2014, @03:43PM
=kw= lurkin' to please
(Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday January 01 2015, @01:42AM
> Demand has been shifting toward all-in-one devices with basically no user replaceable parts.
I would argue that supply has been shifting in that direction.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday January 02 2015, @03:26PM
I'd agree with you there. If anything, demand is moving where it always moves -- towards *cheap* phones. And Project Ara could win big there if it's done right. And with the budget and engineering knowledge of Google behind it, there is a chance it will be (granted, it still *might* fail quite spectacularly, but if it was a Microsoft or Kickstarter project we'd *know* it would fail spectacularly.)
I've owned the Galaxy S5 for almost a year now. It's a great phone. But I still know multiple people who within the past six months purchased the Galaxy S3. Which is now a three year old device. Why? Because it's good enough, and it's *cheap*. Especially on no-contract phone providers, which are getting more popular these days. People look at the plan prices and say "why am I paying $100/month for phone service when I can get a no-contract plan for half that?" then they look at the phone selection and say "Why would I pay $600 for a top of the line model, when these older $200 phones should be good enough?" I expect Ara might do better overseas initially since many other countries don't have as much of the embedded contract subsidy mindset. So, if you only upgrade the parts you need, you save a ton of money. There are some people who break their phones two or three times a year, they'll save a ton by only replacing the parts they need. Hopefully Google can convince the providers to lower insurance rates on Ara phones since repair should be cheaper and easier. And they can be repaired right in the store again, which would be nice, save on expedited shipping. They can always tweak the plan so it only covers the cheapest version of each module, so maybe you pay $10/month for insurance, instead of $100 to replace a cracked screen it's free, but they'll only give you the $50 screen module and not the $100 one.
The other advantage that's often missed is the benefits when you can keep certain modules long-term. My last phone was 32GB, my current phone is 32GB, my next phone will probably still be 32GB. It's a phone, not a laptop; I'm not storing massive games or a movie collection or anything like that on it. So, I could upgrade the processor and RAM and other core system components without ever touching my storage system. Meaning I'd never have to reinstall all my apps, never have to restore my entire music collection, never need to restore my contacts. Awesome. Of course, then people will be even less likely to have a backup of any of this stuff. So maybe you can sell a hassle-free instant RAID or backup module -- presumably all the modules will be on one bus, so you could create a hard drive module that just listens for requests to the main disk, and duplicates all of them onto itself. If your main drive fails, you flip a switch and run off the backup drive, near zero downtime. Of course, that drains your battery faster.
Then you've got the benefits of competing features instead of competing phones. Every company is out of make the smallest, lightest, fastest phone possible. Because it makes a good impression in the store, where it's tethered to a plug anyway. But as far as I can tell, most *people* don't care as much about that. But it's their only option. You go buy the best phone, you have to buy the best phone. You want the best processor, you're forced to also get the "best" size and weight. But I've got my S5 stuffed into an Otterbox case that more than triples the size of the phone, and I still usually can't tell whether or not the damn thing is in my pocket. I'll take a bigger phone if it means a bigger battery. There is a chance that people might be willing to sacrifice thinness for battery life, or screen size for audio quality, or some other tradeoff. We don't know, because nobody has ever made that an option.
Most people won't change the modules themselves, but that might not matter. Sell it like Dell -- you get a listing like "Battery capacity: Low (-$25) Moderate (+$0) High (+$25) Extreme (+$50)" where you pick what you want and they ship you an assembled phone. A year later maybe you decide the battery isn't holding a charge long enough. Today, most people would go to the store, and the salesperson tells them "Buy this new $600 phone!" and the customer leaves cursing the phone company. With an Ara phone, the salesperson says "Well, I can upgrade that for you for just $50" and the customer might leave happy.
PCs and other devices are getting less customizable because they simply don't need to be. Even a $300 laptop is good enough for *most* consumers' needs. But many consumers are still dumping their phone every 2-3 years (if not even more often) so Ara still has time to shake things up. Maybe in a few years it'll go obsolete as technology advances, or maybe the metaphorical impact of cheap and easy fixes after a literal impact of your phone on pavement will keep it useful for a long time to come. Seems like a worthwhile experiment either way to me, and we're just at the right moment for it where phones are standardized enough to be modular, and expensive enough to be *worth* modularizing.