Modular tech promises individuality

User-customised kit that offers true future-proofing is a great brainwave but can it really fly? Our man certainly hopes so…

Rethink by Sean Keach

Ever found yourself part of the pocketpatting pandemic that kicks off every time an iPhone starts ringing on the train? An antidote to the sickness of gadget conformity could come sooner than you think.

If the success of this year’s Lego Movie teaches us one lesson, it’s that adults still love building things. It’s this that fuelled Minecraft’s climb to a 100 million-strong user-base, making player and game designer basically one and the same. Yet most of the tech available right now is about as bespoke as service-station toilet roll. Could a modular tech revolution pave the way for more bespoke gadgets?

We already have our modular champions, too, they’re just theoretical rather than practical: Project Christine, Razer’s modular gaming PC, and Google’s Ara concept. The latter, a smartphone you can customise and then update parts of as and when you want to, is more exciting, especially in the age of increased bloatware, but is also more likely to struggle in a pretty saturated market.

Project Christine, however, develops the accepted and existing idea of upgrading your PC but takes it from geek’s hobby to child’s play, with every element slotting via the same connector. There’s even talk of selling it on a subscription basis, shipping you new modules as and when they’re released. For a monthly fee, you could always have the best PC around.

But the problem Christine and Ara have is they need third-party support, making all the moddy bits in the format Google or Razer demands. Can you see Samsung, Qualcomm or Nvidia playing that game? It’s a bit of a push.

Despite that, modular tech is sure to build up a cult following. For while many consumers will always want their new toy to work straight out of the box, plenty more can’t wait to throw off the existing tech straitjackets.