Motorola just announced a very exciting smartphone project that would allow consumers to choose their preferred power features and fit them onto the handset.

The company has been working on this concept for over a year and has called it Project Ara. The concept is reminiscent of the Phoneblocks concept that Dutch designer Dave Hakkens introduced back in early September, and Motorola has actually teamed up with Phoneblocks for its Project Ara.

Simply put, Motorola aims to create smartphones that are based on an endoskeleton, with various specialized and easy-to-replace modules. Users would be able to change these modules themselves, which would in turn allow for an unprecedented hardware customization. Users who want long-lasting battery life, for instance, could opt to snap an extra battery module. Those who are more interested in photography could get a high-end camera module and add it to their smartphone.

In other words, consumers would get to choose which features they want to pack onto their smartphones. At the same time, the device would automatically have a longer lifespan, as replacing components would be a breeze.

"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines," explained Motorola.

"Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it's made of, how much it costs, and how long you'll keep it."

According to the company, Project Ara will be developed in the open, while Phoneblocks will help popularize the concept by serving as the project's community. Motorola will open the platform to module developers "in a few months." The company gave no timeframe for when this concept would become reality, but it hopes to release the initial version of the Module Developer's Kit sometime this winter.

Project Ara is still just a concept for now and Motorola will have to overcome several challenges to turn it into reality, but this ambitious initiative definitely has the potential to revolutionize the smartphone world.