Modular products: Smartphone design from a circular economy perspective

Currently a range of modular smartphones is emerging, including the Fairphone 2, Puzzlephone, Google's Project ARA, RePhone, LG's G5 and others. In an industry of perceived short product cycles a modular design concept might become crucial for longer product lifetimes. The paper provides an overview on latest product developments and assesses these against environmental criteria, including longevity, durability, upgradeability, repairability and Design for Recycling and Reuse. Modular product design however is not necessarily the most sustainable design option. Modularity first of all means inevitably more material consumption, as additional sub-housing and universal connectors are required, partly also a larger total product volume to allow for incorporation of the maximum potential configuration and anticipated future technologies. This has to pay off through a significantly longer use of individual devices and modules. It depends furthermore on the user, if the intended replacement of broken modules by new ones helps to keep whole devices in use much longer or if the user just replaces individual modules much more frequently to keep pace with latest technology features.