Google is no stranger to smartphone hardware. It makes Google Pixel phones today, and before that, Google partnered with companies like HTC, Samsung, LG, Asus, and Motorola to make Nexus handsets. It's easy to forget that, across the Nexus and Pixel brands, Google has been making smartphone hardware for 16 years. There could've been another brand of Google smartphones, but it never came to fruition. Project Ara was a modular phone concept that aimed to give users exactly what they wanted — a way to upgrade their phone over time, adding and removing features as they saw fit.

Google originally had big plans for Project Ara. In fact, the director of engineering for Google's Advanced Projects and Technologies group once said the Project Ara team set out to "design a platform for six billion people." It wanted to build a base phone that cost just $50 to make, and could be upgraded with modular components over time. That's how Google planned to convince both smartphone users and "dumphone" users to switch. A low cost of entry, and infinite flexibility. Of course, that didn't happen. Project Ara never really got off the ground, and it's yet another Google case of what could've been.

Motorola laid the groundwork for Project Ara

Google bought Motorola Mobility before selling it to Lenovo

Motorola's Project Ara modular phone concept. Credit: Motorola

The early 2010s was a strange time for Google and Motorola. Project Ara was the brainchild of Motorola Mobility, which was owned by Google between 2011 and 2014. Google bought Motorola Mobility to acquire its large portfolio of patents, as it needed to protect Android partner brands from potential patent infringement lawsuits. The hardware business was an added bonus, and it was later resold to Lenovo. Before that, Motorola Mobility started the Project Ara modular phone concept while a subsidiary of Google. After the Lenovo sale, Google held onto Project Ara.

Project Ara was designed to make smartphones affordable, upgradeable, and modular. As smartphone prices continue to rise in 2026, a modular phone with a low base price and room for custom upgrades sounds like a dream. At the time, there were only about a billion smartphone users worldwide. Project Ara was as much about improving the smartphone experience for current users as it was about getting the entire planet onboard. With a bill of materials starting at only $50 for the base Project Ara phone, Google and Motorola's plan was to sell it to the masses.

The core concept involved a frame, or endoskeleton, that modules would connect to. These metal frames would have been manufactured by Google, but the modules connecting to them could have been from a third-party company. You could choose between "mini" and "medium" frame sizes, according to the plan. Both would've been miniscule by today's smartphone standards. The medium Project Ara frame was supposed to be roughly the same size as a Google Nexus 5.

The front of the frame held a display module, with extra room on the front and back for other necessary modules. The base frame was expected to cost around $15, with the $50 starter kit adding a display, basic processor, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Since the platform was set to be open, third-party companies could have made modules for Project Ara without having to pay Google.

Google canceled the modular phone project

Project Ara turned out to be one of Google's failed experiments

The cool part about Project Ara was the modularity of the open system. The medium frame would've offered a 3x6 modular slot layout on the back, which could accept 1x1, 1x2, and 2x2 modules. The modules were designed to add basic components like a processor, display, or camera, but the idea was that specialized modules could be created as well. For example, under the Project Ara plan, a manufacturer could make a game controller or projector module that is attached to the starter frame.

Project Ara was officially announced in 2013, and started off strong. There was a (somewhat failed) demo for Project Ara at Google I/O 2014, and plans to test a prototype called "Spiral 2" in Puerto Rico in 2025. That's where things started to fall apart. Google delayed the Puerto Rico pilot, and by the time we saw Project Ara again at Google I/O 2016, the concept was far less ambitious. The "Project Ara Developer Edition" wasn't fully modular or upgradeable. It had fixed core components that were supplemented by extra modules, and it was hardly representative of the original Project Ara vision.

That said, the Developer Edition came with seemingly solid timelines. Google planned to ship the Developer Edition later that year, with an official Project Ara launch the following year. It never made it that far. In September 2016, only a few months after Google unveiled the Developer Edition at Google I/O 2016, Project Ara was officially canceled.

The modular phone concept still lives on

Tecno is showing what a modular phone could look like in 2026

Google's modular phone concept is dead, and it joins a long list of projects to never make it outside its Mountain View, California headquarters. It's wild to think that over a decade later, modular phones are still a concept manufacturers are toying with. Chinese company Tecno has a modular phone concept that looks particularly impressive. It's sort of like the Project Ara Developer Edition that never was. Tecno is using a 4.9mm base phone with core features, and a Modular Magnetic Interconnection Technology system used to add extra modules and features.

While not quite "modular" like Project Ara, the Fairphone 6 is another example of a company building smartphones that can be assembled by the end user. It's not a concept — you can buy the Fairphone 6 and repair it yourself today — and Fairphone earns points for that. It has a lot of features smartphone fans claim to want, like expandable microSD card storage and a battery that's easy to replace. However, you have to pay a premium price for that commodity.

There's nothing exactly like what Google had planned for Project Ara on the market today. A modular phone with a cheap frame and an open modular ecosystem simply doesn't exist today. While Google is selling Pixel flagships for over $1,000, I'm thinking about Project Ara, the phone that would've cost a fraction of that to get started.