SMARTPHONE CASE ACTS AS ‘AIRBAG’ TO HELP PREVENT DAMAGE
It’s a fear many smartphone users are familiar with — the panic that consumes your body as you watch your phone drop to the ground, praying the screen isn’t cracked as you turn the device over.
Philip Frenzel, a 25-year-old master’s student at Aalen University in Germany, knew the feeling all too well. So, he decided to create a product to help prevent any damage from occurring. He calls it the “mobile airbag,” formally known as the “active damping” case.
The case, which took Frenzel four years to design, is equipped with sensors that detect when a phone is falling. When the sensors activate, they trigger four springs — located on each corner of the case — to unfold and poke out in two directions, preventing the phone from hitting the ground.
When you pick the device up, you can fold the “set of eight thin metal curls” back inside the case. The case is patent-pending.
However, those bouncy springs may not offer 100 percent protection. If your phone is dropped on an uneven surface, there’s still a possibility it could get damaged.