HMD is making a Barbie flip phone alongside a smartphone for tinkerers

Away from branding announcements, HMD had a couple of more product-focused initiatives to announce. The most interesting of these is HMD Fusion, a new smartphone-style device that HMD is pitching as a DIY platform for tinkerers. Like Moto Mods, but you have to make and program your own accessories.

Essentially, HMD’s aim with the Fusion is to offer the kinds of tinkering possibilities of a Raspberry Pi, but in the form factor of a smartphone complete with a built-in screen and battery. It achieves this with an array of six pogo pins on the back of the device, which are designed to allow the attachment of hardware accessories. For software it’s running Android with an unlocked bootloader, and HMD is calling the kinds of hardware you might build around the device “outfits.” Between them, HMD’s ambition is to provide a device that end users or even businesses can customize to suit their needs.