This New Zealand Tech Company Wants to End Breakdown Rage

Imagine if, when your iPhone's battery begins its descent into the temperamental target of swear words they all inevitably become, there was a way to fix it without feeling like an extortion victim. Or if, as new camera technologies became available, you could easily upgrade only the camera and keep the rest of your phone.

This is the philosophy underpinning New Zealand company the Module Project, brainchild of former filmmaker Ketzal Sterling. Basically, the company plans to release a range of technology, starting with the Decibel speaker, US$195, that is fully user-interchangeable, meaning that, as the technology of each component advances, you have the option of ordering—if you feel inclined—the new part from the website and installing it yourself. "Components don't wear at the same rate, and the technology advances at different rates. So all we're doing is making these products in an upgradeable manner. For example, you need to replace the battery, it's a user-replaceable battery, you need to upgrade the processor, it's also user upgradeable." Module launched its crowd funding campaign on indiegogo.com today, raising US$11,000 in the first hour.

The idea came to Ketzal several years ago when he bought a UE Boom. He soon realised it didn't have an easily replaceable battery, essentially condemning the product to the not-very-long lifespan of that single component. "Essentially, they've given it a lifespan so they could sell me another one in three-to-five years."

Ketzal finds it ridiculous that we are capable of producing technology capable of lasting a lifetime, but that the obsolescence essentially programmed into products as a marketing tool keeps us forever buying new phones, speakers, computers. "We've seen the spreadsheets of products that have been designed by competing companies, and on the spreadsheet itself it says 'Life cycle: 3 years' for a product that realistically should function for 30. We're building a company on something that should be how existing technology companies already operate, but they don't."

Committing to producing a product you hope will last a lifetime comes with some obvious difficulties—perfecting a design that will be timeless, making sure every detail of its manufacture is perfectly executed: Module doesn't have the safety valve of knowing its customers will be buying a new product in three years. It's a company built on a critique of high capitalism's throwaway culture, right down to every last detail—for instance, when you upgrade a part, it'll come with a prepaid envelope in which you can send the old part back to be recycled properly. "The intention is just to slow the destruction of the beautiful planet we live on. There's 7.5 billion people at the moment and if we all use a phone that lasts for one year we'll be in even more dire straits than we already are in."

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