A smartphone case that avoids broken screens even in the event of a fall? This is the promise of an invention of a young engineer, who integrated a system similar to that of airbags using kind of springs. Sensors are present to detect the fall and the hull then automatically deploys the protections. When you know the price of a screen repair, this product could be very useful.
A smartphone case with built-in airbag to best protect your smartphone, you had to think about it. And that’s the idea of Philip Frenzel, a young engineer at the University of Aalen in Germany, TechCrunch reports. An invention that allowed him to win the prize “Deutsche Gesellschaft f-r Mechatronik e.V” (German Society of Mechatronics).
For this shell, it started from the observation that today’s smartphones are really neat when it comes to design, and that it is often a pity to hide most of them with protection. He then came up with the idea of a system that triggers only when needed. To do this, sensors detect when the smartphone is in a free fall situation to deploy what is akin to springs.
Smartphone shell: broken screens, soon to be from the past?
Initially, his idea was to install a real airbag in the manner of what is done in cars. This proved too complicated to create a shell that is not too bulky. Instead, it’s on metal loops installed at the corners that act as an airbag and deploy when the smartphone is falling. The impact on the ground is greatly reduced and the smartphone must escape unscathed. Just fill these spring loops once the device is back in our hands.
The smartphone case has quickly become an essential accessory to protect our expensive and fragile devices, whose screen tends to break at the slightest fall. Unfortunately, this is not always enough. Depending on the model of the smartphone, the case used to make it vulnerable, the nature of the shock, the altitude of the fall or the surface on which it falls, it is very common to damage your smartphone, usually by inattention.
If you’ve experienced such an episode, you know how problematic it is: either you choose to pay for repairs, which often cost a lot of money (and even more to have an iPhone repaired at Apple), or you agree to use your broken smartphone, which ruins the user experience. The most extreme option is to change smartphone directly, which is a shame when it is recent.
Philip Frenzel filed a patent application to protect his invention. For the final development details to be worked out and production, he could turn to crowdfunding via the Kickstarter platform. You can find a demo video just below to see this hull at work. We can’t wait for the product to be marketed so we can try it ourselves.
