By During a press preview in New York for the upcoming 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (of which Phandroid will be covering) a company called HzO showed off their water-proofing technology that could soon be making its way to a smartphone near you. The way it works is different than you might think. Rather than keep water out, HzO allows water to creep inside and around your phone without doing any damage what-so-ever.
Apparently, HzO uses some kind of nanotechnology that creates a “nano-scale film barrier” with the circuitry, keeping water from doing damage to any of a device’s internals. He demonstrates this by making a call to a pre-treated Galaxy S II dropped into a bowl of water and fully functions as if it never knew that its life was ever in danger.
If you plan on buying a can of HzO and applying it to your Android smartphone, tablets, TV or hair(?), unfortunately the process is a bit more complicated than that. We actually don’t know much as far as pricing or availability goes but what we do know is that Zagg, of Invisible SHIELD fame, is handling the marketing and distributing of a handful devices pre-treated with HzO.
What do you guys think? I’m hoping we’ll see the beginning of OEM’s pre-treating their devices with HzO or something similar, seeing how drownings are the leading cause of death for smartphones each year. We’ll definitely find out more when Phandroid covers next year’s 2012 CES being held in January.
[Via PCWorld]
Impressive if it works as advertised. I hope they have good insurance and a good lawyer team though.
soooo…uhm yea… i see a major player buying up this idea/company up QUICK.
and by player you mean google and then apple somehow figures a way to patent it and bring death to all androids.
ive said this before. apple has a patent on breathing. im just waiting for the pack of lawyers to hit my front lawn.
as for major player be it google,samsung,lg, i goves a damn. as long as it isnt apple im good :)
don’t hold your breath
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/22/golden-shellback-waterproofing-defies-water-reality/
I see what you did there very clever
…cell phone re-pair brings in a lot of money to the carriers and 3rd parties.I cant see them helping introduce something that would render a major part of their income OBSELETE.
Anyone notice how the SGS2 activates a USB mode when in the water…. is it shorting the micro USB port in the water? Ummm… pass. Make my phone impact-proof, that’ll be something! THAT’S a phones real biggest threat. Just don’t use your phone in the rain, shower or toilet. Solved.
I’d say cracked screens and water damage are the main causes of smartphone deaths in the world. I wish someone would perform a poll…
Actually, why don’t WE do a poll? Yes! :D
idk bout you, but i do have a pole…
I’m listening O_o
The USB mode thing is interesting isn’t it? I guess they can’t treat that bit without also preventing the connection from working. But if that’s the case, how do they prevent microSD, sim and battery contacts from shorting as well? Maybe they just forgot the USB port?
Even so, the fact that the phone is completely operable after (and during!) being dunked in the water is impressive. I’d definitely like to see something like this on my phone, if there’s any way of doing it.
Sir, your reasoning is built on the faulty premise that it is possible to put the phone down.
> Just don’t use your phone in the rain, shower or toilet. Solved.
A better solution is:
Rain: simply never, NEVER EVER go outside. Period.
Shower: don’t take showers, this also leaves more time to use the phone
Toilet: . . . um . . . , well, you know, there are adult diapers so you can avoid being near water.
:-)
If it works like what is advertise, it will save lots of phones that have been dropped from the toilet.
Okay, if I’m understanding this process correctly, the waterproofing is at the PCB level. Having to coat the goods at that component level means it would have to be done by the manufacturer before assembly…So NOT a process available to anyone post-assembly (save for some of us iFixit-type geeks who like to tinker and take things apart down to the component level!)
As someone who’s dropped my Nexus One into the crapper (I was able to resurrect it) and has had a Blackberry die from just a few drops of rain…I’d DEFINITELY like to have this “barrier” of protection on my phone!
How deep can it goes? And the only bad thing bout this YOU can’t talk underwater
Well, due to there amazingly illustrated and informative video, I now know what a nook and indeed a cranny look like. (0:36 second vid)
This is one of the real features of the Razor which is seldom mentioned. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the smartphones die from drowning.
I dont really know if the RAZR can handle that….but it can handle rain water and wet hands on the screen
My Droid X1 needs a battery pull almost every time to stop tripping out from water on the screen. Wiping the screen doesnt work all the time.
The RAZR, just wipe the screen and u good to go…in my testing anyway…sometimes it works with a wet screen and no wiping.
I saw a video a week or so ago about a this product that was just comming onto the market. It was going to be marketed by one of the smartphone protectyor shell companies, I believe Zagg. The demonstration showed several different electronic devices, including a phone, dropped into the fish tank and soaked. They still worked after being pulled out. I don’t believe it was something for the consumer to apply but for the manufacturer. This appears to be that product.