Project Ara's First Prototype Modular Smartphone Kit, Codenamed Spiral 2, Set to be Pilot Tested in Puerto Rico Market within 2015
Project Ara is Google's initiative that aims to develop an open-source hardware platform for building customizable modular smartphones. According to Google's project director Paul Eremenko, "Our goal here is to change the way innovation happens in the hardware space and make it a lot more like the app store and software space."
Through Project Ara, Google hopes to lower the entry barrier for phone hardware manufacturers so there could be "hundreds of thousands of developers" instead of the currently few big name and big-budgeted manufacturers. "We're less interested in people's margins than we are about the pace of innovation... and getting the number of brains [involved] in the ecosystem up into the tens of thousands, like the Android developer market," said Eremenko. "In the same way that Android is free, open source and available to anybody to download from the Google website, the modular developers' kit will be free as well. I think this has a big potential to make the mobile phone market more exciting." Much like the way Google Play Store is structured, anyone can freely develop their own smartphone modules without requiring a license or paying a fee.
Ara Smartphones can be built using modules inserted into the Google-made metal endoskeletal frames (or just 'endos'). Each 'endo' is expected to cost around US$15. There will be three 'endo' sizes at launch: a mini (about the size of an iPhone), a medium (about the size of a regular Android phone), and a phablet-size. Also, the modules can be used interchangeably with any of the three 'endos.' The modules can provide such common smartphone features as GPS, cameras and speakers as well as specialized ones like biometric scanners, night vision sensors and remote game and media controllers. The 'endos' will carry slots which will accept any module of the correct size. The latest Project Ara prototype smartphone modular phone kit is called Spiral 2, and it includes a 1280 x 720 display, light and proximity sensors, 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, 3G modem with a Band 2 antenna, separate Band 5 antenna, battery, speaker module, and a Marvell PXA1928 or NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor block. Google said around 20 to 30 modules should be available for purchase once Project Ara officially launches.
In the meantime, Project Ara is set to be market pilot tested first in Puerto Rico in 2015 where the Spiral 2 proto-type smartphone kit will be sold out of a food-truck like vehicle. According to Eremenko, "We want to create a flexible retail experience. We're designing a food truck as a retail vehicle for the market pilot."