Although the idea of the project was revolutionary, it seems that it was too ahead of its time. The technology was not advanced enough, at that time, to facilitate the development of this magnanimous and ambitious plan.

It was all going well that Google even performed a consumer launch of the Project Ara set in 2017. But unfortunately, Google confirmed on September 2, 2016, that they are shelving out the project to concentrate on their other hardware projects.

Lack Of Demand One of the major reasons for the demise of modular phones is the lack of a major reason to purchase such a device. With modular phones comes the hassle of carrying the add-ons everywhere and constant fear of misplacing them.

Google shelves its modular Ara project to concentrate on other hardware. According to reports from Reuters, Google’s holding company Alphabet has suspended the project in a bid to help it concentrate on its other hardware efforts, including its Chromebook laptops and Nexus phones.

A modular smartphone is a smartphone made using components that can be independently upgraded or replaced as modules. This aims to reduce electronic waste, lower repair costs and increase user comfort. The most important component is the main board, to which others (such as cameras or batteries) are attached.

Modular phones are still in their infancy – and have only in the last few years made the jump from idea to physical product, and have yet to become popular with the public. However, as of July 2020, Motorola have announced that they will be discontinuing their modular smartphone.

At €469 / £425 (the Fairphone 3 Plus isn’t available for purchase in the US, but that converts to roughly $550), it’s competing in price with the likes of the Pixel 4A (€349 / £349) and this year’s iPhone SE (€489 / £399). It’s a crowded price point, one that the Fairphone 3 Plus struggles to be competitive at.

Project Ara was a modular smartphone project under development by Google. The project was originally headed by the Advanced Technology and Projects team within Motorola Mobility while it was a Google subsidiary.

ARA is codename for Google’s initiative for open hardware for highly developed modular smartphones. The structural frame can hold smartphones modules such as battery, display, camera and sim(mmc). The users can remove the malfunctioning module or they can upgrade to the latest module easily just by swapping it…

Ara, which is named after one of the project’s early instigators, Ara Knaian, is a modular smartphone initiative that was set up by Google in 2013. It started out being developed within the company’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, which Google held onto when it sold Motorola to Lenovo last year.