A modular smartphone is a type of smartphone that allows users to upgrade or replace parts, such as cameras and batteries, without needing to solder or use repair services. The main board is the most important part of the phone, as other components are connected to it. These parts can be purchased from open-source hardware stores.

This design helps reduce electronic waste, makes the phone last longer, and lowers the cost of repairs. However, modular smartphones are usually larger and slower than non-modular phones, which may make them less attractive to many buyers.

Motivation

Consumers may choose to buy modular phones to avoid non-modular phones that are designed with planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence, a term created by American industrial designer Brooks Stevens, refers to a strategy where phones are made to be replaced instead of repaired.

Planned obsolescence in smartphones causes them to stop working sooner than needed, leading users to replace their phones more quickly. This fast replacement cycle increases electronic waste, which is one of the fastest-growing types of waste worldwide.

Modular phones are repairable and do not need to be replaced as often. They are considered a more sustainable choice for electronic devices. They are also seen as an alternative to yearly phone releases. However, it is unclear how much benefit they provide because companies that make modular phones cannot always track where their materials come from.

In addition to disposal issues, making phones involves using minerals from conflict areas, which can harm soil and pollute water. Producing these minerals requires large amounts of energy, resources, and processing power to create small amounts used in phone parts like circuit boards, displays, and batteries.

Consumers often replace their smartphones early because parts that experience the most wear and are expensive to fix, such as the display, battery, or back cover, stop working. Modular phones allow users to replace broken parts themselves instead of paying for repair services. This ability to fix phones on their own improves user satisfaction and loyalty to brands.

Modular phones are part of a trend in mass customization, driven by consumer demand for new phone features in shorter time periods. Companies like Fairphone and Google have developed modular phones to help phones and their parts last longer while meeting consumer needs for small upgrades. These customizable phones can be arranged in many different ways.

A concept being explored is lending out modular parts when they are not in use. This idea could reduce electronic waste by allowing users to borrow specialized parts, such as ultra high-definition cameras or barometers, instead of buying them. These parts are expensive to make and only useful for specific tasks, so sharing them could help more people access them without needing to produce extra units.

History

The Modu Phone is a modular smartphone made by an Israeli company. It was the first modular smartphone and holds the record for being the world’s lightest handheld mobile phone in the Guinness World Records. The Modu Phone is a "Jacket" type modular smartphone that lets customers change and personalize their phone’s style by inserting it into different Modu jackets, also called phone connectors. Available jackets included GPS, camera, MP3 player, and keyboard options.

The Modu Phone was first sold in Israel in June 2009. The introductory kit cost about $125 (500 Israeli shekels) and included 2GB of internal memory and a music player jacket.

In January 2011, Modu announced the company was in debt and closed all operations the next month. In May 2011, Google paid $4.9 million for the patents of Modu’s mobile phones, including the Modu Phone.

In 2013, Phonebloks (a concept that was never made) became the first modular smartphone idea to gain widespread attention. Created by Dutch industrial designer Dave Hakkens, this smartphone would have been made of detachable blocks connected to a base. Each block would have pins to transfer electrical signals to the base. Small screws at the base would lock the device together.

The Phonebloks concept would have allowed customers to replace broken phone parts instead of buying a new phone. It would also let users build and customize their ideal phone, such as upgrading to a larger storage block or a better camera based on their needs.

Inspired by Phonebloks, Google started a project called Project Ara. This project was led by Motorola Mobility’s Advanced Technology and Projects team. The goal of Project Ara was to create a smartphone that could be repaired instead of replaced entirely. It aimed to help reduce electronic waste from non-modular phones. Google’s design included a metal endoskeleton with hardware modules attached, such as the battery, processor, display screen, camera, storage, and speakers.

Project Ara also planned to include a special Wi-Fi module to ensure strong signals regardless of the internet service provider. The starter kit, which included the endoskeleton, CPU, battery, display, and Wi-Fi, was priced at $50.

However, Project Ara was abandoned due to its complexity, the need for constant upgrades, and lack of support from mobile carriers. Most consumers buy phones without knowing their internal parts, but modular phones would require learning about components like the processor, RAM, and storage when upgrading. Additionally, major phone companies did not support Project Ara because they profit from customers replacing non-modular phones often. Constant hardware improvements, such as graphics cards, CPUs, RAM, and storage, would also require frequent upgrades, possibly increasing electronic waste.

Fairphone is a modular smartphone made by a Dutch company that aims to reduce environmental harm. The first model, Fairphone 1, was released in 2013, and the latest model, Fairphone 6, was released in June 2025.

As of 2022, Fairphone 4 cost €579 and sold about 400,000 units in Europe. It uses a Kryo 570 processor that supports 5G and a Sony IMX363 camera sensor. The company claims that extending a phone’s lifespan by two years reduced its yearly impact on global warming by 29% when used for five years and by 42% when used for seven years.

Shiftphone is a modular smartphone made by the German company SHIFT. The first model, SHIFT4, was released in 2015, and the most recent version, SHIFT6mq, was released in June 2020. The next model, SHIFTphone 8, is expected in 2023. SHIFT’s annual sales are less than 1 million euros.

To help customers repair phones easily, SHIFT provides video instructions on YouTube and offers repair services. The company also allows hardware upgrades. SHIFT aims to provide spare parts for ten years for the SHIFT6mq model.

Shiftphone and the company faced criticism for not sharing information about conflict-free materials used in the phones. The company also did not provide detailed reports about its component suppliers.

Challenges

Modular smartphones are hard to make smaller, so they are usually larger, slower, and less strong than non-modular phones. These phones are made up of separate parts, and the space between these parts is much bigger than in non-modular phones. This extra size causes modular phones to have shorter battery life and slower performance because the distance between parts affects how quickly data moves and how efficiently power is used. The farther apart the parts are, the slower the speed and the less efficient the power use.

Modular phones also use parts made by different companies, such as InvenSense, Asahi Kasei, and Amotech. These parts are not perfectly matched, which makes the phone work more slowly than non-modular phones. Non-modular phones, like the iPhone made by Apple Inc., have parts that are perfectly aligned, which helps the phone respond faster.

Making modular parts that take up less space is also difficult because of the complexity of how hardware is built. Separate parts not only use more space, but they also need their own individual boxes to be handled safely. This adds to the overall size of the phone. In contrast, non-modular phones have parts like memory, processors, and graphics circuits built into a single chip, which makes the phone smaller and faster.

The ability to replace parts in modular phones also makes them less strong. While Project Ara used latches and electropermanent magnets to make the phone more durable, the phone is still more likely to break than non-modular phones because it depends on parts that can be removed. Additionally, when users take parts out, replace them, or move them, the phone is more likely to break than non-modular phones.

There are also questions about whether people will want modular phones and how they can be sold. Right now, people prefer phones that are updated quickly and can be customized. Some worry that people might feel confused by too many choices and prefer phones that are already put together. Others worry that selling modular phones might not be flexible enough to keep up with how quickly phone models change. This makes it unclear if the market for extra parts will work until more products are available.

There are also concerns about whether companies that sell phones, like AT&T and Verizon, have enough reason to sell modular phones. These companies make money from selling phone trade-in deals and short-term contracts. They might not want to promote modular phones if those phones could reduce the number of trade-ins and hurt their profits.

Even though there are challenges, some people believe that technical problems can be solved. They hope that a market for modular phone parts, similar to an app store for software, could create more competition. This might lead to better and cheaper phone choices for customers.

Modular phone platforms

• Fairphone 6, Fairphone 5, Fairphone 4, Fairphone 3, Fairphone 2, and Fairphone 1, produced by Fairphone
• Librem 5, produced by Purism
• Pinephone, produced by Pine64
• Shift6mq, Shift6m, and Shift5me, produced by SHIFT
• HMD Fusion, produced by HMD

• SHIFTmu, produced by SHIFT

• Essential Phone, produced by Essential Products
• LG G5, produced by LG
• Moto Z, Moto Z Force, and Moto Z Play, produced by Motorola Mobility
• Phonebloks
• Project Ara, produced by Google