An example of an undertaking Are custom-made handset.

Motorola has introduced a brand new initiative to help smartphone users take handset customization beyond ringtones and wallpaper to its very kind and function.

The Google-owned handset firm on Monday announced venture Are, a free, open hardware platform for growing extremely modular smartphones. An endoskeleton, or structural body, holds the smartphone modules of the proprietor’s option, reminiscent of a display, keyboard, or extra battery, amongst others. The method must permit users to swap out malfunctioning modules or upgrade as new innovations emerge, providing a handset that lasts for much longer than these dais’s smartphones.

“Our purpose is to drive an extra thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between customers, developers, and their telephones,” Motorola wrote in a company blog publish. “To provide the power to come to a decision what your telephone does, how it appears to be like, where and what it is fabricated from, how much it costs, and the way lengthy you’ll be able to preserve it.”

Early design ideas from venture are.

In the works for more than a year, the venture just lately partnered with Dave Harkens, the creator of Phonebooks. even supposing still generally in its infancy, Phonebooks construct-your-own-telephone approach has garnered a number of hobby online, with virtually a million people signing up to give a boost to it.

“We need to do for hardware what the Android platform has executed for instrument: create a vivid 1/3-party developer ecosystem, decrease the barriers to entry, increase the percent of innovation, and drastically compress development timelines,” Motorola said in a weblog put up.

The challenge plans to start inviting builders to create modules for the platform in the coming months. It also expects to release an alpha model of a module builder’s kit this iciness.