A modular phone is a great concept, on paper. It reduces e-waste and allows for ultra-customization of a smartphone. But Project Ara, Google’s modular phone concept, won’t hit the market this year because of one giant downfall: it breaks. Really, really easily.
In a tweet sent this afternoon, Project Ara summed it all up with one hashtag: #failedthedroptest. To blame were electropermanent magnets, which can connect together with one magnetic field while utilizing a separate one that’s on an on-off basis for the electronic applications. This means that, theoretically, they can stick together without having to have all the components turned on.
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There’s no word yet on what might replace electropermanent magnets, previously the backbone of making Project Ara work.
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