Moto Mods are interchangeable gadgets you can slap on the back of a Moto Z smartphone to add functionality. Motorola currently sells Mods that extend battery life, add speakers or a projector, or bring better camera features to the phone.
But the company is also inviting others to developer their own Moto Mods. Some will come from big companies. Others may come from individual hardware hackers with an idea.
To that end, the company recently held its first “Mod the Future Hackathon,”vin New York where people tried to put together concepts for new Moto Mods. Eventually some may become real products.
Motorola is holding another hackathon in San Francisco next month, and winners from both will get prizes including a chance to pitch Motorola on their concept.
The three winning concepts from the New York event were:
- Advanced Audio Mod with a digital-to-analog converter for high-definition audio ports
- Sidepad with physical gaming buttons
- Bella beauty companion that uses real-time data from your skin and environment to provide beauty tips
There’s no guarantee that any of these specific products will ever make it to market. But if there’s enough demand… and if the hackers get enough backing for their concepts to turn them into real products, it could certainly happen. Motorola definitely seems to be invested in the whole Moto Mods concept and plans to include support for Mods in its next-gen smartphones in 2017.
via /r/Android
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The winners sound a bit disappointing. I like the idea but when I think about it, the only ones that make some sense would be the zoom camera, the projector and spare battery. Maybe the speaker, but I think I’d rather just bring a better separate speaker if I needed it. Many accessories are better just as separate wireless bluetooth devices.
I would try to design a single thin mod form factor that can come with different options. Like one could have I/R blaster, hi-fi ADC, spare battery, gesture pad, extra buttons all in one. Or, only have some of those options at a lower cost. All variants would probably have a battery at least. Maybe they could be tiles like the Ara itself, and purchase the different options at a later time, with blanks if you are not using some of the slots.
physical qwerty slider keyboard would be way better