Been thinking about the right way to approach this phone as a budget oriented buyer, as a fan of the iPhone 13 mini and S10e. A phone that explores the potential of forgotten modular concepts like LG G5 and Moto X, in the design language of CMF. A practical module that doesn’t claim impractical goals but practical ones that can be useful in real life.
I’d like to present my work over the past two days, the CMF Phone 3 mini concept.
What is on the Outside…
A camera system readapted from the CMF Phone 1, same design language of CMF, the screws, the colours, the Thumbscrew to add accessories.
The size is based on the S10e, but converted to have a 88% screen to Body ratio of a 5.8″. It is a rather thick phone at 12.5mm (there’s a reason for that)
the Power button is a finger print scanner, there’s the usual Essential Space button, the side volume buttons. There’s the sim card and micro sd Hybrid slot. Same front facing camera as CMF Phone 2 pro and the same SOC that’s to be optimized for its size and power requirements.
Let’s move on to the star of the show, the Modular system.
The Phone half features the 10 pins connector for USB-C and the audio system (speaker and audio jack) that’s present in the battery pack, along with 4 pins on the side dedicated for the external battery. It is a hot-swappable power system, the phone will have 3~4 batteries of 400~600 or so maH that adds up to about 1200mah or more. At the center of the battery system is a Z-axis Linear Actuator https://www.vybronics.com/linear-lra-vibration-motors/v-lv031245-fp418
at the bottom are the mics (to be added in the render, i forgot it lol) also any antenna system will be on the phone body itself apart from say an FM radio antenna in the optional battery modules that will be introduced later on. The Phone half is 5mm which should be enough space, seeing Samsung is able to fit stuff in the Z Fold, this should have a bit more room to work with…
The Battery pack… Contains the thumbscrew for cmf accessories, (lanyards, stand, etc) the standard model should have a 4000 or so mah battery, so a grand total of 5000mah. The USB-C being on the battery pack means you can charge the battery pack as stand alone without having it connected to the phone, so if you were to have an extra pack there’s no need to worry, you can also check the charge status with a button that has 6 LEDs glowing next to it to indicate the charge level. It also has the speaker and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Different options can be explored with the battery packs. You can have a bigger battery pack, dual bottom speakers, or bigger speakers with a bigger battery pack. you could have a slide out qwerty keyboard maybe as you can make a pack that has it to take advantage of the 2.0 data pins. you could have a gaming keyboard etc. I’ll see what all concepts I can make with that.
I believe this should still be able to hit the budget of the CMF Phone 2 pro. It will require good investments to get the system going. So far, this is the only practical way I can see Modularity happening.
Feel free to suggest stuff.
Edit 1: I still have to work on the rails system to guide the module into place and maybe a way to hold the bottom part near the port with magnets or a screw…
I’ll be working on another concept I have in mind. The CMF X concept. (Flagship killer)
Edit 2: I’ve decided to redesign the mounting system. rather than sliding the battery pack in, i think we’ll use a system that is based on Qi2/ Apple Magsafe with a user-replaceable rubber Gasket to have some level of rain/showerproof system to keep the pins safe, the new pins will be Pogo type pins for charging and Data Connection. This system should make it much easier to snap modules in place.
The New snap-fit concept uses 1mm pogo pins for usb and audio, the power system uses 2mm pogo-pins
