Modular Phones: Is it just a pipe Dream?

The idea that, in the event some part of your phone breaks down, you can simply replace the part-or module, instead of replacing the entire unit might sound familiar.

- Dhinoj Dings

After all, we do that to some extent already. But what if the replacement wouldn’t require professional assistance? What if you could get a module from the shop which you can just clip on, as you might attach a pair of contacts to your eyes? That’s the entire concept of a modular phone.

Apart from the convenience factor and the economic savings it brings, what makes the modular phone sensible is the lesser e-waste it implies: Something that can be viewed as crucial in the context of the rising climate and environmental crisis the world faces right now.

A short look back

Though modular phones in their most refined state are still in the future, the core idea of swapping components has been around for a while.

For instance, parts such as hard drives, memory card and graphics card could be changed in a desktop computer-as anyone who has ever owned a computer knows. In the case of mobile devices, one of the earlier models with somewhat modular features was the Handspring Visor PDA-which offered the Springboard Expansion Slot, something that helped it function variably as a phone, GPS, a modem or a camera, albeit just one at a time. Then, there’s the phone+screen core created by Modu, an Israeli startup. This could be added to different cases by which you could use the device as a camera or a keyboard. However, the company didn’t take off as expected and later its patents were bought by Google.

The first modular smartphone concept to garner truly widespread attention was the Phonebloks. It was the brainchild of the Dutch designer, Dave Hakkens who posted a video that depicted his vision of a completely modular device in 2013. That video is perhaps more responsible for the global interest currently seen in modular phones than all the other related content put together. (So far, the video has been viewed more than 20 million times).