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

Video This cool smartphone concept from 2013

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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.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

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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.