The march of the Moto Mods continues. Motorola currently sells a handful of modules that can extend the functionality of its Moto Z line of smartphones, and the company recently partnered with Indiegogo in an effort to encourage people to develop crowdfunding projects for more potential third-party Mods.
One that’s generated a bit of excitement is a Keyboard Mod, which adds a physical QWERTY keyboard to the phone. It attaches to the back of the Moto Z and slides out when you want to type. The Mod also a built-in battery to give the phone a little extra juice.
Now the crowdfunding campaign for the Keyboard Mod is live, and you can reserve one for a pledge of $60. If all goes according to plan (and the developer raises $100,000), then the Keyboard Mod could begin shipping in July.
But the Keyboard Mod isn’t the only new project to show up at Indiegogo. Here are a few other interesting projects that could become real products if the developers raise enough money:
- Monitor Mod: Add HDMI and RCA input, allowing you to use the phone as a display for other gadgets.
- Inhale: Air quality monitor
- Game Z Gamepad: Unlike the Sidepad Mod, which adds gaming buttons to the sides of the phone, this gamepad gives the Moto Z a clamshell-style design, with a flip-up screen and gamepad.
- Storage Mod: Add USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, micro USB, and SDXC card ports to the Moto Z, along with an IR remote sensor, a 2,800 mAh battery, and Qi wireless charging. Oh yeah, it also has 32GB to 256GB of built-in storage.
You can find more Moto Mod crowdfunding projects at the Transform the Smartphone challenge page at Indiegogo.
I guess they opted for a better keyboard over ease of camera use. Fine with me. What’s the diagonal up/right arrow key?
Anyway, if this was available when I switched from a 2014 Moto X to an iPhone SE last December, then I would have gotten the Moto Z. If the future Motos and this still exist in 3 years, then I’d switch back.
There’s a keyboard layout image on the campaign page, looks like that’s a function key for the various extra punctuation and shortcuts.
This reminds me of the HP Jornada in the days of yore. Wonderful machine but the lesson I learned is that if you plan to do any heavy duty computing, you are better off with a pc. You simply cannot substitute a 5″ screen for a 15″ screen.
If these are freely available when I get around to buying a new (high-end) phone it could possibly sway me in favor of the moto line.
The initial selection of mods was a bit meh, but things are looking more interesting after the crowdfunding challenge. In particular, I’m psyched to have a chance at a tilting sliding keyboard again.