Folding Smartphone Inventor Releases First DIY Flexible Phone Kit For The Masses
Image via Royole
DIYs used to just be about fixing a crack in the wall or painting the handles of IKEA drawers in gold. But with all the spare time you have at home now, you might wish to broaden your horizons and… build your own phone from scratch.
Royole—said to have beat industry giants like Samsung into inventing the world’s first commercial foldable smartphone, the FlexPai—is democratizing flexible gadgets by releasing the first-ever open-source flexible electronics development kit.
The all-in-one ‘RoKit’ includes Royole’s third-generation fully flexible ‘Cicada Wing’ display, a flexible sensor module, and an Android 10 system development mainboard.
As daunting as the idea sounds, the kit is designed to be used by designers and developers of “varying skill levels and technical backgrounds,” and can be customized by them to meet their needs. Building a RoKit device apparently takes just five simple steps.
The DIY kit arrives in a cool aluminum alloy briefcase, which is anti-static for “protection and convenience [when] transporting the device.”
And although its US$959 price places the device in the high-end range, it’s worth noting that it’s still only about half the price of a Samsung Galaxy Fold.
[via HiConsumption and Yanko Design, images via Royole]
Also check out these recent news
