Solana Mobile announced it at the Token 2049 conference on Thursday. This new handset, called Seeker, will offer significant hardware improvements over Solana’s first mobile phone, Saga, such as a better battery, more powerful camera and lighter design, said Emmet Hollyer, who leads the phone production project at Solana Labs.

Seeker will also include crypto-specific improvements. The devices will come with a custom-made crypto wallet that connects to the split Seed Vault key storage system. According to Hollyer, wallet users will be able to conduct crypto transactions more seamlessly on Seeker than on Saga.

Seeker represents Solana’s second major venture into a product line that once faced failure. Seeker’s predecessor, Saga, recovered from poor sales last year when crypto traders realized they could buy the device to collect token airdrops worth more than the device itself.

Saga becoming a huge success has reignited Solana Labs’ interest in integrating crypto more deeply into mobile devices by creating custom hardware and software. Saga and now Seeker were built as Android-based devices with their own app store for crypto developers in the Solana ecosystem.

The expectation for the new model is quite intense. Solana decided to produce the second phone after receiving more than 100,000 pre-orders in early 2024. This capital infusion and buyer commitments helped Solana Mobile achieve better supply chain agreements than were possible in the initial release, Hollyer said.

One of the appeals of Saga as an alternative to the iPhone and standard Android devices was the launch of a standalone app store (dapp store). Developers could create and publish crypto apps on this store without incurring the high fees of Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

Seeker’s Dapp store offers improvements over its predecessor by enabling better discovery of different apps, Hollyer said. This diversity became possible only thanks to increased interest among developers. While several teams developed apps for Solana’s first phone, according to Hollyer, “many teams” approached seeking guidance for Seeker.

“When we announced this phone and they saw that we had pre-sold 100,000 units, the ecosystem teams went after it.”

The store will also better track the token rewards accumulated by users. Hollyer predicts that Seeker will have significant revenue potential, with many teams planning to reward phone owners.

Seeker will have more flexibility for third-party apps to access “digital leftovers” like GPS data, cellular data and other data that device manufacturers typically keep under lock and key, Hollyer said.

This situation requires some balancing. Typically, devices carefully protect such data due to privacy and other concerns. However, this data is especially valuable for crypto projects that create decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).

Solana Mobile collaborated with user-supported decentralized cellular networks like Helium and other Solana DePIN teams to determine what sensor data they could use in Seeker. Data points from otherwise forgotten “digital leftovers” can help a team better track the growth and performance of its physical infrastructure.

“We think these will present incredible opportunities for monetization, engagement and engagement for our users,” Hollyer said.