Sunday Times 2
The airbag for your phone
If you’ve ever dropped your smartphone you’ll know that sinking feeling as you pick it up to find it’s dented, scratched or even ruined.
Inspired by this, Japanese car maker Honda has created a smartphone case with built-in airbags designed to prevent these kind of costly accidents.
Dubbed Case N, the phone accessory acts like a protective shell and if the handset is dropped, the six airbags immediately deploy.
However, the invention is just a concept and Honda doesn’t have any plans to sell the device.
Japanese car maker Honda has created a smartphone case with built-in airbags. Dubbed Case N, the phone accessory acts like a protective shell and if the handset is dropped, the airbags deploy (Honda via Youtube)
In a video for the concept, a Honda employee is shown looking forlornly at a picture of his cat through a scratched iPhone screen.
This gives him an idea and the engineer starts testing various inventions designed to protect his phone from being damaged when dropped – including dropping it from the top of a building.
He eventually comes up with the idea for the Case N and tests out various prototypes.
The final version is held up to the camera andas he drops the phone with protective case, slow-motion footage shows the airbags deploying.
In a video for the concept, a Honda employee is shown looking forlornly at a picture of him and his cat through a scratched iPhone screen, pictured
The parody video also shows the airbags deploying if the phone is removed forcefully from his pocket, preventing it from being stolen.
Although the Case N is just a concept, and Honda has said it has no plans to ever produce the product, a similar design was seriously suggested by Apple.
As discovered by PhoneArena in March, an Apple patent was released for a case that tracks how close a phone is to hitting the ground, using built-in accelerometers.
As the phone, and case, reaches the floor, gas-powered thrusters fire in the opposite direction to slow it down.
© Daily Mail, London