CES 2015: Blocks unveils a modular smartwatch
We’ve been hearing a lot about the modular smartphones lately, for example Google’s Project Ara and Circular Devices’ Puzzlephone, among others. The modular devices allows a user to replace the processor and the camera, the battery and the display of a smartphone, which means, you can essentially personalize the whole smartphone at both operating system and hardware levels.
A new Kickstarter project by Blocks, showcased at International CES 2015, brings in the modular technology on the wrist. Blocks smartwatch has taken the modular concept and imported it to the mushrooming market of smartwatches. Blocks offers modules for battery, GPS, contactless payments, a microphone, a SIM card for calls and a heart rate monitor. All the modules can be swapped to completely personalise the smartwatch.
More so, the Blocks developers claim a 24 hour long battery life of the smartwatch, however, this issue no longer sounds like a problem, since you can replace the battery module whenever you run out of fuel, which is exactly what the beauty about a modular device is. Additionally, you can daisy chain multiple batteries in the strap to increase the runtime of the smartwatch.
Also, a report by Gizmodo suggests that the expected price of the core module with the screen will be around $150, with $20-$40 for each additional module, which would add up to a total cost of around $330 for the complete set.