Motorola unveils Ara open hardware platform for modular phones

Motorola AraDo you remember the Phonebloks modular smartphone concept that would allow users to swap out and customize their smartphones with various component modules? It looked very interesting but seemed impractical. Perhaps not, says Motorola. Its own Advanced Technology and Projects group has been working on project Ara, its own take on the modular phone concept.

Ara is billed as “a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones:”

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. Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. 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.

Project Ara consists of an endoskeleton (endo) and a variety of modules. Much as with Phonebloks, users would build the smartphone of their choice by attaching the modules of their choice onto the endo structural frame.

Motorola Ara

In fact, Motorola has met with Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks, and will engage with the Phonebloks community throughout the development process.

Motorola promises that more information will come in the next few months. It also plans to launch an alpha release of the Module Developer’s Kit (MDK) sometime this winter to allow developers to build their own modules.

We look forward to finding out more about Motorola Ara.



Source : Motorola