alt Hacker NewsIt's literally cheaper to build this kind of thing from scratch than to try and re-use existing components like this.
Maybe there is still a market at this price point, for example if there are tax breaks, or the price of the thing you are selling is so much that the customer just swallows the extra price.
I still think it would be better if we were to go the way of modular systems. I'm currently building out a controller system that has a modular interface and should be upgradeable as I swap out components and improve it, without adding much to the overall footprint. I think this really is the way forwards with this kind of thing.
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yeah the website says a whole bunch of nothing imo & doesnt really define a problem needing to be solved, perhaps they've struck a deal with phone carrier's to get unsold phones that are destined for the landfill as they have a t-mobile logo on their site, thats the only business aspect I can imagine get 10s of million worth of components for like a 1/10 of the price etc
google is telling me around 400k phone like devices are thrown out into landfills everyday, there might be a market to bring down costs eventually if they get logistics properly moving
They seem to be treating the old phone as modular, they mount the old PCB on a carrier board with more I/O, they don't look to be desoldering individual chips.
You should be able to just reflash the phone and maybe point a small fan at the case. OEMs do everything they can to make that impractical though.
> I still think it would be better if we were to go the way of modular systems.
Modularity can be expensive, though. The unused IO soaks up pins and pushes you to bigger packages and up the SOIC/QFP/QFN/BGA chain. You add multiplexers and transceivers and buffers and so on. The traces take board space and layers and the connectors cost a big chunk of the BOM. Separate modules add SKUs and manufacture, assembly and inventory overhead, and the offboard interfaces take space, power and time.
Whenever you have any appreciable volume, it's almost always cheaper to integrate and demodularise, even before you consider the physical size and form factor of the device.
Otherwise all embedded systems would be made of dev boards wearing a hat. Now, yes, there are many systems that use something like a RPi Compute Module or a TI ControlCard, but once you crack a certain volume, it's an easy cost optimisation to "flatten" it into a single PCB.
And the one thing you do not want from designing around a module is the possibility that the supply of surplus OldPhone X3 mainboards or whatever dries up in two years and it turns out the new generation of modules are just a bit different.