The (short) history of modular smartphone upgrades and add-ons

Years after Motorola’s most recent attempt at adding high-value, high-utility external smartphone modules sputtered out, HMD Global (maker of the iconic Nokia brand of devices) teased the upcoming release of its Fusion modular smartphone add-ons at MWC 2024.

We know almost nothing about them at the moment, but HMD’s dangled carrot makes it worth revisiting the industry’s multiple ill-fated attempts at expanding phones’ capabilities in novel (and sometimes cumbersome) ways over the last decade. While plenty of innovating companies have introduced novel modular concepts over the years, few reach the project stage, and even fewer see consumer release.

Modu, Phonebloks, and Project Ara

The early days

Way back in 2009, Israeli startup Modu released the eponymous Modu phone, then record-holder for the lightest mobile phone ever. It was designed to serve as the centerpiece for a variety of chassis that would serve as a keyboard, camera, or music player. It fell flat at launch due to poor performance and a generally underdeveloped concept, but several of its patents did make their way into Google’s hands (note the foreshadowing).

Dave Hakkens, a sustainability-minded Dutch engineer, set out to put smartphones on a modular path with his 2013 project, Phonebloks. Conceptually similar to a desktop computer’s use of discrete components, each blok outside the phone’s mainboard served a specific purpose.

The idea was that various manufacturers would offer ranges of bloks — different cameras, storage units, or DACs, for example — with different prices and capabilities, so consumers would only need to shell out for the features they really wanted. They’d also be far easier to replace in the event of failure. For this to work, the different manufacturers would need to work together toward common hardware and communications protocols.

Needless to say, this project’s biggest pitfall was the requirement that many manufacturers agree on a small set of standards (yeah, right). Actual plans to produce a Phonebloks product never materialized, but the concept did get a decent amount of attention from the press and enthusiasts alike.

Just let Google do it

While Hakkens was initially developing his concept, Google — which had just acquired Motorola Mobility in 2011 — was already utilizing its ever-growing knowledge base, including the aforementioned Modu patents, in a mission called Project Ara. In late 2013, Motorola announced its involvement with Project Ara, even collaborating with Phonebloks to investigate the feasibility of an entirely modular smartphone.

Project Ara got pretty far along, including a developer’s kit and an actually publicly revealed prototype. Seeing continued engineering challenges, though, Google’s goals shifted as it eventually compromised and moved toward a largely non-upgradeable core module in its final Developer Edition.

While a plan was in place to release a consumer Project Ara device, it never became reality, and Project Ara was officially canceled on September 2, 2016. In retrospect, the tech just wasn’t there yet in terms of performance and compatibility, and the trade-offs required for modularity (like increased thickness, weight, and signal latency) weren’t things consumers or manufacturers could accept.

The LG G5 and its LG Friends

Before their time, despite poor implementation

The LG G5 was a great phone, hyped up even more by the novel LG Friends module lineup. LG’s proprietary set of peripherals certainly had the spirit of righteously powerful add-ons. The Cam Plus included an auxiliary battery, microphone, loudspeaker, and host of buttons helpful to the image capturing experience, but didn’t actually enhance imaging capabilities. Bang & Olufsen collaborated for an external DAC (never sold in the US), but most people barely notice that kind of high-end audio processing, anyway.

The LG 360 VR headset was probably the most ahead of its time, and an updated concept today might actually get more traction. But the actual hardware underwhelmed in every way, and never supported enough content to get off the ground. The most fully baked of the bunch, the 360 Cam, saw limited demand, a clumsy app experience, and less-than-great image capture, rendering it a failure in the end.

Motorola’s world of Moto Mods

OK, now we’re getting somewhere — kind of

While LG’s mod system faltered, Motorola hit the ground running in 2016 and eventually developed a pretty large stable of external add-ons for the Moto Z series. For example, the Hasselblad-backed True Zoom aimed to turn your Motorola handset into a professional-quality camera — but did little more than add 10× optical zoom at the cost of $300. Two years later, the 5G Moto Mod sought to add next-generation connectivity to a previous-gen phone, but as we now know, that’s a challenge much better tackled by the device’s modem itself.

Moto Mods also included things like power banks, projectors, external speakers, gamepad attachments, and wireless charging connectors. As the market makes clear today, a system of proprietary modules that only work with a select group of (not incredibly popular) phones won’t lead to much adoption. Quite simply, too many great third-party accessories exist for people to invest in such a dedicated platform.

What’s more, Moto Mods’ magnet attachment and pogo pin placement prevented Motorola from updating its phones’ design throughout the Z series’ roughly four-year run, which limited what engineers could do with new models. This stagnation, plus poor marketing and mod branding, Verizon exclusivity, and high mod pricing led the system to fall off by 2020. Even worse, the whole debacle arguably set Motorola’s smartphone status back as a whole.

Fairphone’s eco-friendly mission

Modular repairability, for a niche

It wouldn’t be fair to exclude one of the few companies that still actively fights for consumers’ right and ability to repair and possibly upgrade their phones. Fairphone doesn’t approach things from an external add-on perspective, but instead makes phones easy for end users to open up and fix. Conceptually, the possibility of upgrades exists, but hasn’t been implemented within the company’s designs, other than an upgradable camera for the Fairphone 3.

The Fairphone 5 is a legitimately good device. It won’t win any awards other than Most Repairable Phone, but it’s nonetheless a winner in that sense. It makes some compromises, but breaks ground by showing that it is possible to deliver a quality smartphone that doesn’t receive a death sentence when any particular component goes kaput.

Another company, called Shiftphone, takes a similar stance. But it’s an essentially crowd-funded company largely irrelevant in the US with few devices to its name, and its phones take a little more skill to open up and work on than what we’ve seen with Fairphone.

How HMD Fusion can push the envelope

Some possible hope for the modular future

Again, we don’t know much about HMD’s plans yet. But its Nokia-branded phones have, at least on their face, promised relative repairability compared to other modern smartphones. They don’t typically boast a true flagship experience, but those of us looking for long-term sustainability can usually stomach a compromise or two.

Don’t let the seemingly topical Barbie phone tie-in fool you (and yes, sorry, a Barbie phone sounds awesome), HMD looks to take a slightly different angle on its modular ecosystem. It’s already opened a portal for modular device development, and promises to essentially open-source the ability to design new types of what the company’s calling “smart outfits.”

Instead of releasing just a few, proprietary, high-cost add-ons, HMD’s banking on things like 3D printing and coding now being mainstream endeavors, as Adam Ferguson, HMD Global marketing lead, explained to Digital Trends. With the rise of basically user-developed concepts and devices, we could well see smartphone mods engineered by Joe Schmo down the block in his garage. And if that leads the way to increasing the performance of cameras, audio, communications, or any other major smartphone utility beyond what today’s ultra-slim flagships can manage, we’re here for it.