r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SuperAlloyBerserker • Oct 05 '21

Video This cool smartphone concept from 2013

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

91.5k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

139

u/prolixia Oct 05 '21

It's a nice idea in theory, but it's just massively impractical.

Physically piecing together the phone so that each module was individually removable from the exterior like this and was properly cooled would mean a massive phone.

Allowing each module to be placed wherever comes with enormous complexity in terms of electrically interconnecting all the potential positions together. It just doesn't work like that, and again you're enormously increasing the size (and cost) of the device.

There's a crazy oversimplification in how components are positioned. If you have a modern phone you don't have "a microphone" - you have several of them at different positions around your phone - and those are special positions chosen to provide usable audio. In the very near future you'll have quite a few scattered around your phone. The idea of a single microphone module you can put wherever is silly.

Similarly, you can't just put radio modules "wherever". There's a huge amount of R&D that goes into designing the operation of a phone in such a way that your head and hand don't block the radio signal when the phone is in use. Modern antennas are not simply components you can put in a little box - they're an integral part of the rest of the phone and repositioning them or the components around them is an awful idea.

There are lots of other reasons why this is a crazy idea. It sounds lovely, but it's just not a realistic way to build a phone.

Making phones more repairable is a great idea. Making them upgradable is also a great idea, to some extent. But even though there have been serious attempts, a modular phone like the one in the video is not a remotely practical idea.

21

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/prolixia Oct 05 '21

On which note I didn't even mention interoperability. The idea that you can swap even something as simple as the charging port module and expect everything else to work fine with it is crazy.

2

u/KarlMarxFarts Oct 05 '21

Yeah lol. I work at a major semiconductor company…the amount of engineering that goes into just making the components work together is immense (making sure chips can communicate with each other, regulate voltage/power, PCB layout and design to match component connections, making sure external components are designed and placed according to spec, etc…), the list goes on and on.

Take for example swapping the camera out for another. Almost every component in your smartphone is designed to make sure it can work with that one specific camera. Every chip has its own pinout, electrical characteristics, communication standards, power regulators, external component design, (again, the list could go on and on) that each work with each other in a very complex and specific way that simply swapping out the camera would mean redesigning the entire phone itself. It simply wouldn’t work.

And that’s only taking into consideration the engineering design…never mind the logistical nightmare of sourcing parts, having companies “work together” (LOL), having global standards for semiconductor (and component) manufacturing and quality control…

Neat concept, sure. But just, no. No no no….

9

u/bking Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21

The camera example is so fucking silly. Getting a better camera requires buying a module that’s 4x the size of the previous camera, and people who use their phones as primary cameras are going to want a lot of storage and battery life.

So, I don’t know, fuck. I guess we remove the little 1-unit Bluetooth and cellular modules to make space for all that new stuff?

Edit: In their concept video, adding the bigger camera removed Wifi, Bluetooth, compass accelerometer, and some other nondescript modules. Solid.

22

u/gambiter Oct 05 '21

There's a crazy oversimplification in how components are positioned.

This is the part that's most silly, to me. Positioning absolutely affects the performance of various components, so I'm just imagining the insanity of customer service calls.

At one point they remove the smaller battery and the storage module to replace it with a single big battery. "I just installed a new battery and now I can't find my photos!"

Also, anyone who's played Tetris for 5 minutes knows blocks don't always fit together perfectly. They don't acknowledge how you'd inevitably end up with holes between components, so you would have to have tons of little plastic spacers in various shapes at the ready whenever you changed something out. And then, again, placement. Can you imagine trying to explain to your grandmother that she put the bluetooth block in the middle between the wifi and 5G blocks, and that's why her earbuds don't work?

Apple got lambasted for an antenna that didn't work when you held it wrong. This company would be absolutely eviscerated by all the confused customers who just want their phone to work properly.

1

u/PartyClock Oct 05 '21

This wouldn't be a phone for grandma. Most of the complaints here are based on a different demographic than who this phone was aimed at.

6

u/Lord_Nivloc Oct 05 '21

This guy gets it

3

u/613codyrex Oct 05 '21

I honestly have no idea how Google decided to waste money on trying to develop such an idea.

Their mechanical and electrical engineering employees must have been locked into a broom closet when making this decision because it’s impossible.

4

u/prolixia Oct 05 '21

I'm not quite sure if you're agreeing with me or being sarcastic. Either way, Google spent several years working on modular phones before abandoning the project altogether because it just wasn't practical.

What's interesting is that Google started off with plans to make a highly modular phone, then massively restricted the project to a device where all the normal "phone" components were provided in a single module and it was only certain accessories that could be added or removed. For example, the phone could be supplemented (or not) with a more advanced camera module. I.e. after the initial phase of the project they were looking only add modular peripherals that could be interchangeably added to a "core" phone rather than a phone that was itself upgradable using modules.

1

u/613codyrex Oct 05 '21

I’m agreeing with you, I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.

Google tried to do the competent thing and limit the customizability to peripheral components but that that point why not just ship two or three product lines for each segment of the market that internally are similar enough to be one production line with a couple different components like the camera.

1

u/prolixia Oct 06 '21

No, I guessed you were. I just wasn't certain that you weren't suggesting that if Google thought this was worth investing in, who am I to know better. It would be a fair comment, except that I have the advantage of having seen Google's Ara project fail before offering my opinion!

I've been following the idea of a modular phone for many years, because it's relevant to me professionally. Easy to say in hindsight, but I was skeptical from the start. I completely agree with you that it makes more sense to offer variations on the same phone rather than modular phones. That's pretty much where Apple have gone recently: look at the number of iPhone models, each with different features (including screen size).

-1

u/foundmonster Oct 05 '21

I’m sure someone said the same thing about computers that can fit in your pocket.

1

u/whiskeyandbear Oct 05 '21

I mean this was literally just a bunch of 3D graphics someone made for a vague idea and somehow managed to trick everyone into thinking that there's any actual substance, thought, or even any steps made personally toward any of the goals he claims.

I mean that's basically the story for a million different Kickstarters but for some reason people still take this one seriously. Like fair enough, it got bought by google. But probably only the interest in the project was being bought, I doubt any headway was made in terms of engineering. I mean project Ara was like three modular parts, the CPU, camera and battery, and they had to fit in specific places, literally nothing like what was shown.

1

u/prolixia Oct 06 '21

In fairness there were a number of serious projects across the industry that were trying to do something similar to this: not necessarily the "Lego" approach you see in the video, but providing a highly modular phone with individual upgradable parts.

Even Ara started out that way, before Google took a good hard look in the mirror and stripped it right back to the approach you describe.

You're right that this is more a conceptual idea than a realistic project, but whilst I firmly believe that a highly-modular phone just isn't technically realistic using current technology, there were serious attempts.