Sustainable Interaction Design - Rethink, Phonebloks, Ara and Beyond

Rethink was an example scenario of sustainable phone presented by Jain & Wullert in 2002. It was a phone built with recycled and recyclable materials, using modular components to promote reuse and longevity of use and it used modular software to achieve the same goals. Limited by the physical longevity of  the components, it would hardly be able to achieve heirloom status, but not impossibly so. It also aimed to replace many different devices, which in a sense was looking for wholesome use and made the user a source of energy, replacing unsustainable use (burning of fossil fuel as an energy source) for sustainable use. It's interesting to note that many of the software (and some of the hardware) characteristics described by Jain & Wullert are present in Android smartphones, such as being sufficiently integrated, programmable and convenient that they eliminate several other devices, possessing software radios for adaptability to new environments and technology advancement and an open, standard API so that new applications can be downloaded on demand, extending its function as well as life. The availability of these characteristics vary from one phone to the other, but are all present in the platform as a whole.

Phonebloks was a concept conceived by Dutch designer Dave Hakkens as his graduation thesis for the Design Academy Eindhoven. It extends on the idea of modular components presented in the Rethink scenario by describing how to achieve modularity: a base provides mechanical and communication infrastructure for modules responsible for processing, data and energy storage, sensor arrays and user interface hardware. It addresses most of the same questions of SID Rethink does and extends on some of them. Motorola based its Project Ara on Phonebloks and, through acquisition, Ara ended up under Google. Ironically enough, a major stumbling block for Project Ara is Android itself. Although Android covers many aspects of reusable software, Google says adapting Android to a modular hardware platform is one of the main challenges of building Ara right now (probably because most members of the Open Handset Alliance are manufacturers and providers who rely on planned obsolescence for sales).