This slideset is an introduction to Kite, reason it exists & what problems it solves. This presentation was made to students of PESIT, Bangalore on 24 March 2018. In this presentation, I have tried to capture some of the ideas behind Kite & why we made Kite.

1. KITE
Open Hardware AndroidSmartphone
SHREE KUMAR
iSquare Mobility
24 March 2018, PESIT, Bangalore

2. Who am I ? • A geek
• Been buildingAndroid devices for
7 years
• Creator – Kite
• Hobby-man
• Blog @ www.shreekumar.in
hoping to restart soon!

3. Audience
Poll
• Android users ?
• How much did pay for your smartphone
– Less than 10k
– 10-20k
– 20-30k
– More than 30k
• Application developers ?
• System level developers ?
• Linux Kernel Programmers ?
• 3D Printing, Designing
• Raspberry Pi, Arduino ?
• How many of you think you know how Android works?
• How many of you want to know ?
• kiteboard.io & hackaday visitors…

4. What is a
Smartphone
• Smartphone is a powerful computing platform
– Fully connected
– Compact form factor
– Power optimized
– Battery operated
– Rich features set
• Mass market device
• There’s an “app” for everything
– Feature set driven by mass appeal

5. There’s a
smartphone
in everyone’s
pocket
• You can break it
• But you can’t make it!
• With Kite, you can…

6. Modular
Smartphones
• “Phonebloks” concept
– September 2013
– Concept of reducing waste
– https://phonebloks.com/journey

7. “Modular
Smartphones”
• Project ARA
– April 2014
– July 2016 – less modular, dev kit
“coming soon”
– Sep 2016 – Cancelled
• Other Modular Phones
– Moto Z

8. “Modular
Smartphones”
• A consumer concept
– Got developers excited a lot!
• A failed concept
– For consumers, mostly…

9. Smartphone
Development
• Smartphones are great!
– Have conquered the world in 10
years…
– Great “leveler”
• The more they change, the more
remain the same
– Reaching a “plateau”

10. Smartphone
vs
PC
• How many of you
– know how your PC works?
– can customize your PC ?
• How many of you
– know how your Smartphone works?
– can customize your Smartphone ?
• Do you see a problem here ?
– Audience opinion

11. Student
Presentatio
n
“This is how
a smartphone
works…”

12. Android
Architectur
e
Inside the
Black Box

13. Android is
an Open
Source
Project
• Source : http://source.android.com/
• Internally developed at Google.
• Large bump for every “revision”
• Depends on Linux kernel…

14. Is Source
Code
Enough?
Saying from Y2K

15. What’s the
problem?
• Smartphones are the computing platform
– Of the future…
• Smartphones are powerful technology
– Fully connected to local & global networks
– Energy efficient computing
– Battery powered operation
– Rich multimedia features
– However, there is no easy way to use this tech for
anything else.
• But very few people can build one…
– It’s a hardware problem

16. Why have
Smartphone
s
remained a
Black Box?
• Customized only by OEMs/device makers
– Latest features are not available in Linux
– The “board” market is well captured by Linux
• Hardware interfaces are proprietary/not open
• Android is best known as a Smartphone platform
– NotTV, Wear, Auto, … Things
• My understanding of the reason:
– There is nothing that isAndroid
– That is a phone
– And is supremely hackable…

17. Who is
impacted?
This is not a
consumer
problem…
• Students
– Limited to building apps
– Believe everything review sites tell them… (a wider
problem, really)
• Startups
– Can’t make real devices without investment
• Researchers
– Can’t add their great tech in a natural way to a phone
• Makers
– Stuck with inexpensive boards
– Peripherals much worse than everyone’s phones…
• Educators
– Limited to teaching app development
– Ever seen a cellphone design course ?

18. Inspiration Not everyone needs to solve problems at
scale, to start with…
People who are really serious about
software should make their own hardware
Alan Kay, 1982
The best way to predict the future is to
invent it.
Alan Kay, 1971

19. Our Design
Philosophy
• Break up the smartphone into pieces
– Not fine grain (processor, memory)
– Ensure pieces are approachable for hobbyist
• Key pieces must be “configurable” and “extendable”
• Don’t create new “standards” of “modularity”
• Leverage tools from the maker revolution
– 3D printing
– Off-the-shelf electronic components
– Raspberry Pi & Arduino accessories
• Don’t require “high end” tools
– Consumer grade 3D printer
– Simple designs suitable for FDM printing
– Philips screwdriver!

20. Our Design
Philosophy
• Provide a kit of useful blocks
– Powerful, but not limiting
– Feature rich, but affordable
• “Sum is greater than the parts”
– Ensure they can be used in creative ways
• What you can build depends on
– The equipment you have access to
– Your own curiosity
– Your own abilities & persistence
– It’s the “ring of power” from LOTR

21. KiteBoard • KiteBoard is a single board computer
– Compact
– Standalone
– “Motherboard” of a smartphone
• Generic connectors for extension
– Display
– Camera
– Antennas (u.FL)
– Battery
– I/O Pins

22. KiteBoard
Block
Diagram

23. Kite • Kit of components, based on KiteBoard
– KiteBoard Kit => Kite

24. Kite
Empowers
you

25. Kite • Allows you to go beyond normal smartphone
– Add your electronics
– Change Antennas
– Change Battery
– Modify case designs
– Hack Android source code at every level…

26. Demos • Turn on camera for live demos

27. What we
Learnt
making
Kite
• A smartphone can be used for much more
– Has more features than are exposed in phones
– Separation of features lets everyone build what they
want
– And all this was the case for tech out of 2014…
• We have a sound design!
• Our implementation needs a bit of improvement
– Need a solderless base design
– Simplify expansion
– Custom battery

28. Next Steps • Upgrade KiteBoard
– Snapdragon 625, Adreno 506 GPU
– 4K video encode/decode
– 2GB RAM
– USB 3.0,WiFi ac
– 2 displays, 2 cameras
• Simplify & improve the kit
– No soldering to make minimal phone
– Smart battery
– Better camera
• Make a global product, crowdfunding on

29. How can
you get
involved?
• If you become a kit backer, you can work with us!
– We are right in Basavanagudi

30. Further
Information
• http://www.kiteboard.io/
• https://hackaday.io/project/42944-kite-open-
hardware-android-smartphone

31. Thank you!