LG Electronics is ramping up efforts around LG Playground, announced alongside its G5 at Mobile World Congress, which is designed to create a set of partner products to accompany its smartphone proposition.

According to ETNews, the company hosted a partner event in South Korea, intended to create “a module ecosystem that will be started with G5 and LG Friends [companion products]”. An event in San Francisco is also planned.

The vendor will make available software and hardware developer kits, to enable product development.

While LG announced the Playground initiative alsongside its new flagship, it was now noted that the effort will also support future products. The company will also launch an online store, for the sale of supporting devices and content.

LG’s G5 has a modular design, which enables the addition of camera and audio peripherals to boost its standard capabilities. And also unveiled was a portfolio of “Friends”, including VR googles, 360 degree camera, and “rolling bot” home monitoring system.

LG and South Korean counterpart Samsung are both pushing hard to position smartphones as part of a connected devices ecosystem.

While providing consumers with a portfolio of peripherals that will add a greater degree of ecosystem lock-in than smartphones alone, and generating additional revenue, this also paves the way for new innovation which is largely lacking in the world of incremental smartphone upgrades.