Gadgetory

Yola maybe right in the middle of an attention-getting tablet launch but the company hasn't forgotten its smartphone nor the two part construction that makes it so uniquely customizable I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow here with a quick look at yola's other half the other half was always meant to be more than just a snap-on case but when we took our first look at the Yolo smartphone a little over a year ago that's basically all it was you could buy another half in a different color and the software would automatically adjust its colors to match when you snapped it on but that was about it in the time since yola's community has been busy a hardware developer called funky other half showed me a number of takes on the concept here at MWC from the useful to the just plain fun in the latter category a panel full of LEDs that either react to ambient background noise or strobe randomly reminiscent of the flashing phone cases of years past on the professional geek side of the spectrum is the breadboard setup allowing you to plug Arduino components directly into the phone to be controlled by a custom app on the sailfish OS then there's the jumper switch box which lets you trigger any of a series of custom scripts just by flipping a switch on a more accessible note how about a solar charging other half it's not the prettiest thing in the world and it may only give you about 3% per hour in the Sun but hey it's solar power for your smartphone and then of course there's the sort of holy grail of Yola other half development the keyboard attachment this kickstarter-funded accessory is a two parter actually a backlit keyboard which attaches magnetically to a custom backplate it comes in multiple colors trims and finishes and passes data through the pogo pins on the back of the phone the idea is that it connects for the first time downloads its drivers automatically and is ready to work with no software mucking necessary bring it along when you need it leave it at home when you don't it's not final Hardware none of this is but as a demonstration of yola's extensibility it's very effective as a community-developed accessory it's also a validation of yola's people-powered motto and a testament to the power of the open platform for more on custom other half cases from the Yolo community check out Yolo calm and Yolo users calm and stay tuned for future Yolo coverage at pocket now in the months ahead until next time this has been michael fisher captain two phones on twitter with jaime Rivera on the camera from Barcelona for pocket now see you soon