Modular System

• Customization

Modular Phones

What is project ARA

Thank

You

• Its the first open source, modular smartphone made for consumers

• Its designed exclusively for 6 billion people

• inspired by Phonebloks

ARA's Story

What next?

• Travel Companion - A

companion and reliable guide

for explorers and adventurers

• Personal Assistant - For those who command high performance and effiency

• Fitness Trainer - A watch that works as hard as you do

• What about modular watches?

• Why stop at modular phones?

How its succeeding

• Massive community support

• Open source gives it a bigger market

• Access to Android Lollipop OS

• Beating most of its challenges

What ARA Aims to do

• Economic Feasibility

Against:

• Build the first long life smartphone

• Potential increase of e-waste

• Technical Barriers

• Convince developers modular technology is the future

• Reduce waste

Reasons why it may/may not work:

For:

• Advancements

• Easily repaired

• 'Bloks' are attached to create a personalized smartphone

• Can be replaced at will, to replace a broken block, upgrade or expand functionality

• Buy bloks in the 'Blokstore'

Who is behind it

Advance Technology and Products

• ATAP is a small group within Google
• There are 3 members
• It is currently developing 3 Projects ARA,TANGO and Duet.

• As of Febuary 2014, the campaign had over 950, 000 supporters and a social reach of 380 million people

• Outstanding support received

• Partnered up with Google, Sennheiser, Audio Modules and Cyso.

• Modular smartphone concept

• Reduce electronic waste

• "With your bike you repair the tyre, you don't throw the bike away" - Dave Hakkens

Phonebloks

• Not the first attempt at a modular design phone

• Lego phone

The next step for a better phone

How Ara works

When you design a system there are two broad ways you could design it.

The first way would be to design the complete system using the known theories and use the system as it is designed.

The alternative way would be to design the components of a system separately.

Modular design does just that.

Modular design is an approach that splits a system into smaller parts or modules.

What can be independently created and then used in different systems to drive multiple functionalities.

Modular design in cars

Aspects of modular design can be seen in cars or other vehicles to the extent of there being certain parts to the car that can be added or removed without altering the rest of the car.

A simple example of modular design in cars is the fact that, while many cars come as a basic model, paying extra will allow for "snap in" upgrades such as a more powerful engine or seasonal tires; these do not require any change to other units of the car such as the chassis, steering or exhaust systems.

For instence desktop PC's are made in the modular design format.

In a broad sence a graphics card is a module and so is the motherboard and CPU.

Benefits of modular design:

• Developer
• Each module or part is individually tested or can be tested.

• Development time
• The development time is often lower because once the design is split up into modules, design teams can work in parallel on the different modules.

• Cost efficient
• Replacing one module of a system is often more cost cost efficient then replacing the hole system.
• Environmental benefit
• Reduces waste
• The technology waste we are producing is enormous
• Exchanging a module will instead of the hole system reduces waste.

So as you can see we are no strangers to this approach of design.

What else can we expect of upcoming modular technologies.

There are many project and ideas out there.

Roombot

Cublets

And finally this approach has come to our mobile phones.

With modular phones we will be able to custimise our phones to the specifications we wish and not have to resort to the preset spec's the developers give us.

Instead of buying a hole new phone because it has a better camera in it we could just buy a new camera for our phone and swap it out.

Change:

So what can we expect from the moduar pone

Modular

Technology

The Modular Design

• Modular Design splits a system into smaller parts or modules.

• What can be independently created and then used in different systems to drive multiple functionalities.

• For a modular system to work the modules have to be created compatible to each other.

Otherwise its not gonna work

or inapropriat.

Benefits of modular design:

Developer Benefits:

• Each module or part can be individually tested.

• Lowers Development time

Consumer Benefits:

• Cost efficient

Environmental benefit

• Reduces waste

Modular Robotics

A robot made up of modules

Cubelets

Home made Robots

Every Module has a certain function

Four types of cubes

Cubelet Modules

And many more

Estimated arrival for the consumer is 20 years

2034

Founded by: Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research

NO MORE

Roombot

Roombot

New CPU

NO MORE

Detachable Component

• Cost between $50-500.

• Aimed to compete with the major phones from Samsung,Apple etc.

Different Types of the phone

!

A visual inside

!

Where ARA is now