
A Day with Project Ara, Google's Modular Phone - bufo
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/day-with-project-ara
======
Someone1234
Project Ara is a cool concept but very vaporware-y. I don't think it will ever
come to market as a general release consumer product.

I have three distinct reasons for this belief:

\- Current gen' cellphones are extremely dense internally. There is no empty
space, a Project Ara phone needs room for connectors, housing, and similar.
Where does this space come from? The battery?

\- Either the components will be tightly coupled in which case you'll lose the
primarily benefit (interchangeable components) or loosely coupled in which
case you'll lose performance (as data is transitioned in and out of generic
interfaces).

\- The connectors can never be "good enough." With the phone heating and
cooling (environmentally or from internal sources) and the phone getting
knocked around/bent/etc you'll see components disconnect from one another and
the thing crash, a lot.

The Project Ara project might generate some cool concepts which they can go
forward with, a lot of cool ideas come from other failed ideas. But as a whole
concept where you can slide in and out components and it somehow doesn't
increase the size, weight, or decrease reliability or battery life just seems
like a pipe dream (baring any massive improvement in battery technology).

I genuinely hope they succeed and I'd buy a Project Ara phone if they can
engineer something remotely palatable, however the engineering challenges on
this one just seem too high to overcome.

PS - I didn't even touch on the software issues and some of the chick-egg
problems relating to this (e.g. are they going to have a pre-Android OS run
who's only job is to reconfigure Android for the hardware changes?).

PPS - This negativity has nothing to do with the recent demo crashes. That
happens during development, it is normal. I am more concerned about the
technological challenges they face and if they're over-come-able at all.

~~~
smellf
> you'll see components disconnect from one another and the thing crash, a lot

Isn't the whole point of project Ara that you can disconnect components and
the phone doesn't crash?

> you'll lose performance as data is transitioned in and out of generic
> interfaces

I was thinking about this - I doubt they'll have a single interface that is
generic enough to attach CPU and memory as well as other peripherals - I'm
guessing each connector will bundle separate connectors for the CPU and RAM,
so that whichever slot the CPU and RAM modules go into, they'll still be on
"their" bus. Then you'll have the generic bus, which will be like a USB or PCI
bus on a computer - you can attach anything else to it and it's all treated
the same. The performance loss would come from the bus itself being inferior,
not having to shoehorn disparate devices into using it.

> There is no empty space, a Project Ara phone needs room for connectors,
> housing, and similar. Where does this space come from?

No doubt, these will be larger phones.

> I genuinely hope they succeed and I'd buy a Project Ara phone if they can
> engineer something [awesome]

Me too :)

~~~
seanflyon
> Isn't the whole point of project Ara that you can disconnect components and
> the phone doesn't crash?

If the CPU is disconnected from the device it will not continue to function.
Failing gracefully is the best you can do and even that is incredibly hard.
Are you going to give the CPU its own battery so it can keep its cache when
removed?

~~~
smellf
In the initial materials I read about Ara, they indicated there would be a
very minimal, secondary CPU, memory and battery in the frame itself. So, when
you want to hot-swap the CPU, it falls back on/suspends to that tiny system
temporarily.

~~~
jkestner
Why is it important to hot-swap the CPU? Who is this phone for? This is either
a mobile high-availability server or engineer wanking.

~~~
madeofpalk
Engineer wanking.

I believe this is like an eternal prototype, not meant for mainstream.

Make a fat, ugly device with low battery life and experiment with different
concepts.

I assumption is they'll take learnings from Project Ara and apply it to a new,
'production' phone that has like a detachable camera or something.

------
cromwellian
People keep saying this won't work and that modular HW was really only good
for games, but there's lots of examples of modularity already in consumer
space:

1) Many mobile phones are already modular to an extent. Replaceable batteries,
replaceable SD cards, replaceable SIM cards. Then there's an entire ecosystem
of add-on cases for phones. Sony is shipping add-on camera lens even.

Ara is just proposing to make some additional things "add-on", like swapping
the camera module. If they only made battery and camera the swappable modules
alone, it would be a big win, and plenty of people would choose different
camera modules.

2) Look at the prosumer camera market, both DSLR and new mirror-less models. A
significant population of people desire interchangeable lens. A phone with
interchangeable camera module could have all kinds of possibilities.

At a certain point, phones will be so powerful and capable that losing 15% of
size/weight efficiency to achieve flexibility, especially as devices become
commoditized will be a tradeoff worth making.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Many mobile phones are already modular to an extent. Replaceable batteries,
replaceable SD cards, replaceable SIM cards._

I'm not sure those are great examples of modularity on the march; replaceable
batteries and replaceable SD cards, at least, are both much less common on
smartphones today than they were (say) five years ago. The trend for the last
couple of years has been towards non-user-serviceable batteries and omitting
external storage slots altogether.

(I wish it wasn't, since I _want_ my phone to have those features, but that's
the way the market has been going.)

~~~
Joeboy
> The trend for the last couple of years has been towards non-user-serviceable
> batteries and omitting external storage slots altogether.

I wonder why that is. It's the only thing I don't like about my Moto G.

~~~
Thimothy
The idea I have heard most is that is happening because Google is pushing it
for people to use their "cloud" services. You don't need a lot of space for
music, use my cloud music streaming service. Don't store your documents in
your device, use Google docs. Out of memory in Drive? You should upgrade your
plan. And so on.

As a person that likes to carry an awful lot of music allways, it sucks a lot
and really limits your choices when buying a new phone.

------
freyr
This is cool technology, but I wonder if it's solving any problems for the
consumer?

If I cracked my phone's screen, it would be great getting to replace it
without having to pay for an entirely new phone. I suppose it might be nice to
upgrade the camera, if a nicer camera becomes available. I'm not sure what
else. The author claims a precedent for modular technology, and mentions
computers, cars, and airplanes. But if anything, computers and cars now seem
more integrated and more difficult for owners to modify. I've never tried
swapping out parts on a plane.

Also, I wonder how Android might support this. It's difficult enough
maintaining compatibility among the set of Android phones; increasing the
number of possible hardware configurations by orders of magnitude by will
probably require some major changes at the OS level.

Anyway, I'm sounding negative. But I do think this is cool. Like DARPA
programs, it could have a positive long-term impact in both intended and
unexpected ways.

~~~
jshevek
> I suppose it might be nice to upgrade the camera,

Yes, exactly. Every aspect can be upgraded, at the best time to upgrade that
part. I've upgraded entire devices in the past simply to make one component
better (switching to higher network speeds, getting a better screen, getting a
larger screen, getting a faster processor). Instead of buying 4 entire
devices, I could have accomplished the same upgrade path for half the cost.
This would not only save me money, but would cause less harm to the
environment.

I would love to be able to switch screens on my phone depending on what I am
doing. For example, slot in an eink screen when reading on a flight, and enjoy
that sweet long lasting battery.

You could switch carriers and keep your phone, just by slotting in a new
module.

You could buy a hugely expensive, awesome camera module, and not only be able
to keep it even when you want to upgrade to a faster phone or a larger phone,
you can share it with your ara using friends.

>> Also, I wonder how Android might support this.

Yes, apparently they've already made a lot of progress in this area.

------
diminoten
Why is everyone so negative on here? This is totally kickass, and could create
a physical marketplace along the same lines of what we currently know as an
"app store".

What's so "this is impossible" about this idea? We live in the 21st century,
and we're trying to do things like send people to Mars and cure cancer. We've
got cars that run exclusively on electricity, and potentially a propellent-
less way of producing thrust -- why is "a modular mobile device" (it doesn't
even have to accept phone calls, does it) beyond the realm of possibility?

Just seems _super_ negative, for absolutely no reason.

~~~
ecopoesis
Because it's easy to see the shortcomings of something, and hard to see the
potential, especially the potential for sea-change products.

If it was easy to create or see the potential of universe denting products,
then everyone would do it. But it's hard.

This is so common, not just amoung the HN crowd, that the proverbial phrase
"missing the forest for the trees" exists to describe it.

Of course, we could just also say "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad.
Lame."

~~~
simi_
I don't think Project Ara be a major breakthrough of any kind, yet I'm still
very excited about it. This (hacking for hacking's sake) is exactly what I
imagined HN would get excited about, but instead I only hear some obvious
arguments and negativity. Let's rename this site to Serious Business News,
shall we?.

~~~
jshevek
>> Let's rename this site to Serious Business News, shall we?.

Yes. Hackers may be practical and honest about limits, but they focus more on
potentials, possibilities. Hackers get excited about projects like Ara.
Hackers ask: what can be done with this? Rather than say foolish things like
"this is a solution seeking a problem".

------
mehrdada
This is a solution desperately searching for a problem. Exactly what Steve
Jobs warned against in developing technology.

I personally can't care less about modularity in a phone. Would rather have a
1mm thinner phone over any sort of modularity. Almost all modules can be added
wirelessly, unless they are latency-sensitive or very high bandwidth.

Additionally, due to economies of scale, it may make sense to integrate a
module that's extremely useful to only a half of the population in every
device manufactured and that may still be a net win economically.

~~~
bobbles
Just like there are iMacs and custom built desktop PCs, more choice is good
for everyone

~~~
mehrdada
Good for everyone, ...except Google shareholders maybe? (Maybe not though; it
might earn more for them in marketing value, as Satya Nadella pointed out.)

------
drcross
Ara is doomed to failure. Normal phones are designed with one concept in mind,
an overall integrated product. In the case of Ara there are loads of
inefficiencies and wasted spaces. A normal phone has one big battery cell and
a case that protect it. For Ara if you want to add two battery units they are
smaller in total than one big one because of the doubling up of matter needed
for structural integrity. There are enough manufacturers in the industry to
cater for individual preferences but thinking that one adaptable phone design
is the best way to cater for everyone is misguided. People generally don't
even upgrade the CPU in their desktop machine, the thought that they are going
to do so in their smartphone is idiotic.

~~~
jshevek
You do realize that upgrading the cpu on an ara phone is easier than swapping
an sd card. Compare this to upgrading the cpu on a computer.

------
Steko
I think we already have modular phones in the larger sense. We can attach
thousands of peripherals via Bluetooth, the charger, headphone jack or wifi
and add one of zillions of third party cases. Our personal data sits in the
cloud and/or on our huge PC drives and works seamlessly with many slabs. Apps
are portable, many even across ecosystems.

------
infectoid
Honestly I can see way more exciting things to do with this other than use it
as a phone.

Something like a tricorder from Star Trek but with the ability to change and
upgrade its components to give it new functions.

I think they are selling it in the wrong direction when they call it a phone.
It could ultimately be the next natural progression for hackable hardware i.e.
Arduino -> RaspberryPi -> The new google thing.

------
amaks
Modular phones (and computers) is a powerful concept that worked really well
with hobbyists (and gamers) so far. It seems to be a healthy duopoly with all-
in-one computing devices we're seeing lately.

~~~
drcross
We're moving away from this paradigm though, the traditional ATX desktop is a
dying breed and the mindshare has already moved to Intel Next Unit of
Computing, RPi, System on a Chip design. For general computing (not hobbiests)
we already have enough compute power. See the MacPro and the Mac Mini, most of
the parts are not upgradable. I really don't think smartphones will be an
exception.

~~~
yincrash
None of those things are used by gamers.

~~~
Igglyboo
You'd be surprised, most "gamers" I know can't tell you what a graphics card
is. There are a lot more "gamers" than those on HN and reddit.

I know three guys at my work, all software developers, who play SC2 daily on
their mac minis.

------
wmeredith
I am really excited about the possibilities here. If they can pull this off
(big if) you'd basically end up something like the App Store or Google Play,
but it's hardware modules. _Drools_

------
tsunamifury
As the iPhone gets smaller, its more and more apparent that it ALREADY IS a
modular part of a larger computing ecosystem.

The Ara project is fundamentally flawed because we don't need to replace parts
inside a phone, the phone is a CPU. We need to add parts ON to it. So make the
iphone smaller, add a second screen (watch) add some sensors (bluetooth heart
rate monitor) and add a few other items which are replaceable and far more
useful not hard integrated into the phone anyways.

If you want a better camera, just buy one and 'add' it to your phone via
bluetooth. Then you can get a camera that is physically and technologically
designed to be the best it can be as an appliance.

All the things I want to add to my phone or replace, I dont need to be on the
BUS of the phone itself -- I just need it to be able to communicate.

~~~
zo1
What does this have to do with the Iphone? You do realize there are _other_
phones out there besides the Iphone, right?

~~~
jshevek
It's interesting that a lot of the naysayers also seem be iphone lovers. I
wonder if there is a degree of 'NIH" going on. Or, more accurately, 'not
invented by my beloved company'.

~~~
tsunamifury
Look at my profile.

------
poslathian
If you are interested in working on Project Ara and future projects that
incorporate modular Android and hardware networking, check out

[http://static.leaflabs.com/flyers/ara/LeafLabs_Hiring.pdf](http://static.leaflabs.com/flyers/ara/LeafLabs_Hiring.pdf)

------
ludoo
Interesting concepts, but what I really would like to see is a wearable
"thing" with computing power, radios, and a way to use voice fro calls and
commands, pairable to different screens. So I could have a 4.5-6" screen as a
phone when out, an 8-9" as a tablet at home, an 11" and 23" screen for
portable and desktop work. All driven from the same computing unit.

The "thing" could be a watch, maybe with an integrated Moto Hint-like earbud
for calls. Or a pager-like device to carry on your belt or pocket, etc. Each
screen would have its own battery, so the "thing" would need less power.

~~~
aeturnum
If the ara project is really, "a device running over an internal network,
rather than just everything being connected to a CPU," then it would be a
great platform for that vision. Presumably, an easy extension would be another
device with its own power supply hooking into the network.

~~~
jonbarker
Couldn't the power supply be induction?

~~~
aeturnum
Sure, but it's hard to induce significant current in devices more than a few
cm away. Considering we can't wirelessly power phones in a room, getting the
phone to wirelessly power a wearable seems unlikely.

------
acd
I like that it is serviceable so that you do not have to throw away your cell
phone because the battery is dead.

Fact a lot of old electronic devices including phones gets illegally exported
to African countries and China. There they are not recycled in an
environmental friendly way.

Here is the documentary e-wastelandfilm, it will make you think twice before
ordering the next great smartphone that soon will be obsolete by a better one.
[http://www.e-wastelandfilm.com/](http://www.e-wastelandfilm.com/)

Thanks to the Google team for creating Project Ara!

------
kretor
I'm skeptical if many people really want this. Modularity makes much more
sense for televisions, but there's still people buying smart TVs, i.e. non-
modular TVs.

------
pessimizer
>Project Ara is like old-fashioned 1980s-era Southern California punk rock
music; it is whatever you make it to be.

What a narrowcast reference. It made me smile, though.

------
bobajeff
So if project Ara isn't finished by early next year they'll axe the whole
thing? Why aren't all projects managed this way?

~~~
poslathian
I invite you to work on a project that is managed this way. The answer to your
question will become clear.

------
otoburb
As the Wired article references, the hope is that this will kickstart a
consumer-driven frenzy akin to the PC industry's trajectories.

It's a long time in coming, notwithstanding that regulations and FCC
compliance seem to be the biggest regulatory obstacles preventing this idea
from becoming reality earlier on during the evolution of mobile devices.

~~~
phreeza
A way of thinking about project ara and many other developments in tech is
"Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements". Reading this
article (old) really opened my eyes in that regard and I have been noticing
the pattern in many places ever since:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html)

~~~
djyaz1200
IMO Our "phones" will soon be a service we login to rather than specific to
any one device? If your physical phone breaks you just buy a new one for $50
and log into your cloud based phone. There are already services like that but
I suspect it will tip soon for everyone. Aka Google is trying to commoditize
the phones AND the carriers.

~~~
jewel
The recent update that moved Google Voice into Hangouts [1] has made that a
reality for me. My phone took a swim a week ago and so I've been using a Nexus
7 as a temporary phone.

The only thing missing is that I had to set up my launcher, install all the
apps again, configure my IMAP email client, and configure some third-party
apps that didn't sync notification sounds.

[1]: In case you're not familiar, it added the ability to make and receive
VoIP calls.

~~~
djyaz1200
Sorry about your phone. Yeah I'm aware, the signs of this trend are all
around. Interesting how hangouts has become a unified communication hub. Close
to hitting mainstream IMO.

------
mng2
I am curious but skeptical. Curious as in, what kind of bus architecture are
they running? PCIe with aggressive power management is my guess.

Modularity is cool but the infrastructure always adds to the cost. The more I
think about it, Ara makes no sense in the phone market. This initiative is
more about the tricorder market, if you will.

------
dflock
If you think about Project Ara as a TriCorder, rather than a Phone, it's a
much more interesting concept, I think.

------
habosa
The concept of a phone running on an internal network is really amazing. I
can't believe they got it going fast enough to be watching Colbert on this
thing (like the article says).

Fairly useless article though. The whole thing just kind of rambles until the
one sentence at the end where they describe the working demo.

------
guidopallemans
Fits well with the new Material design. I feel that some of the latest
software design trends drift apart from the hardware design trends, where you
once had Holo + a black phone or the metallic feel of the OSX interface + a
metal macbook

------
tomcam
If this project works it could prove a godsend to users with disabilities,
even though it can't by definition ever be state of the art (as observed
elsewhere in this post modern phones have zero wasted space, and
housing/integration will necessarily require more space per feature).

A functioning Ara ecosystem would allow the economical creation of devices
with smaller production runs. One version may have a much bigger
amplifier/speaker unit for hard of hearing users. Another may have a huge
screen for those with impaired eyesight. Yet another could be optimized for
those with extremely limited motor function à la Stephen Hawking.

It will also be a godsend to me, because even though I have giant farmer
hands, I detest phones bigger than an iPhone 4S.

~~~
jshevek
>> even though it can't by definition ever be state of the art

Is 'state of the art' a synonym for 'slim' ?

When I think 'state of the art' I think "most advanced hardware".

In theory, if Ara is successful, it will be much easier, more cost effective,
and less ecologically harmful to keep your Ara phone constantly at the
bleeding edge of 'state of the art' than it would be to constantly upgrade to
the latest phones.

Consider also that no single phone on the market combines all the best
hardware in one place, one could argue that ONLY with Ara could you have a
fully state of the art phone.

------
justcommenting
correct me if i'm wrong, but one thing i didn't see in the article was the
relationship between this project and a start-up from a while back...i think
it was called something like phonebloks from a year or two ago?

the article led me to think this DARPA guy just brought the idea to phones
from the satellite world, but especially given the timelines, i can't help but
wonder if there's more to the story than that.

~~~
jshevek
From what I've heard, project ara was started by motorolla _before_
phoneblocks announce their idea. Motorolla was working in secrecy, and this
work transferred to google when google bought motorolla.

When the phoneblocks people became very high profile, the project ara people
decided to reach out to them and let the phoneblocks people that project Ara
was already trying to bring a similar vision to reality.

Phoneblocks had no engineering ability, only a great vision and an appealing
(though impractical) design. So Phoneblocks threw their support behind project
Ara.

------
fidotron
To be fair here, Google struggle with the idea of removable storage in
existing devices, so expecting them to make a reasonable leap into
reconfigurable ones is a pipe dream.

More seriously, this is indicative of a lot of the old pc crowd not having
grasped what a SOC actually is (the clue is in the name) or that package on
package memory has been a thing for years. Our non PC devices are far more
integrated than people seem to realize, and this is why they have the cost,
space and battery usage benefits that they do.

------
taylorbuley
Nice clip, but as a tech journo the amount and type of corrections put on
(late at night) says "Google plant" all over it.

------
scottm30
this will take the fun out of buying a new phone. upgrade the dirty old one
you have that's full of hair and pocket fluff.

modularity works great on a desktop PC, but I'm skeptical that it will appeal
to many people in the mobile space.

ping me in 2 yrs if i'm wrong and i'll eat my words!

------
diltonm
In software design, modular works well so I'd say this is something to watch.

------
zackify
how about you take a FUCKING VIDEO. Thanks :)

------
gcb4
off topic: wired is lame and the site hijacks you. can go back. open in a new
tab if on mobile

