A bunch of people at google thought, maybe the user does not require to dump his current phone to get amazing new features of the newly developed phones. They thought, why not we make the different components of the phone such as the speakers, the screens all into different modules and the just assemble them together on a single core structural frame. This laid the foundation for project Ara.

The Project Ara was launched by google in the fall of 2015. This idea purely caters to the urge of personalising one’s smart phone. It’s the concept of modular phone, wherein, the user has the freedom to attach various components of the phone such as cameras, screens, speakers etc. of different specifications to their phones. The core components like the processors, GPU and Antenna clusters are fabricated into the frame of the phone. The contact points are places across the frame to make these core components accessible by the accessory modules (camera, speaker, screen module etc.). This creates a sea of options for the user to configure their phone as per their convenience.

The independent hardware modules of the phone would be made available in the market to buy from. As an example, if a user wishes to capture some detailed photos, he can just simply slide out the existing camera module from his phone and replace it with another camera module with higher resolution available in the market. This enables the user to greatly personalise his phone as per his requirements.

Electronic waste possesses a huge problem now a days. The Project Ara could also be seen as an attempt at reducing the electronic waste generated by discarded phones. With the conventional phones, the only way to stay updated with latest mobile computing technology is to replace the existing phone with a new one, but with Project Ara, user can stay updated to latest technology by just replacing the previous functional module with the latest functional module. This reduces the cost of upgradation as well and is better on carbon footprint.