Dev team wants to turn the Moto Z into a walkie talkie with your help

One of the most unique aspects of the Moto Z series of phones is the Moto Mods that bring different functionality to the phone. Motorola has already released several official mods, but it’s encouraging developers around the world to try and create their own Moto Mods for the Moto Z. That’s just what Kevin O’Brien wants to do.

Modulator is a new concept module for the Moto Z that will turn it into a walkie-talkie device that can communicate with other nearby devices without using cell service, so it doesn’t cost any money. The IndieGoGo page also mentions that an aim of the mod is to be able to send encrypted voice and text messages for free.

An interesting note is that the project started life as a mod for Google’s Project Ara before that phone was canceled last year. Now the team has switched their focus to creating a Moto Mod for the Moto Z range of devices. The team says they already have a lot of research and development for the idea completed thanks to the previous Project Ara focus.

We just received our Moto Mod™ developer hardware in January 2017 and we are working on porting the existing prototype over to the Moto Mods™ platform. Our main focus is integrating the existing radio transceiver driver into the Moto Mod firmware based on NuttX and moving as much of the frequency hopping code and other radio logic into the firmware as possible.

The team is seeking $20,000 in funding in order to make this Moto Mod a reality.