After aluminium unibody design dominating the industry for a while, glass builds are taking over. From affordable flagship smartphones like the OnePlus 6 to the premium iPhone X, an all-glass build is the new gold standard in smartphone design. However, with a premium look and feel, also comes the danger of shattering that glass. While there are cases that can protect smartphones from damages to a certain extent, they aren’t foolproof.
A new “active damping” case acts as an airbag for your smartphone. Created by Philip Frenzel, an engineer at Aalen University in Germany, this clever case pops opens up to protect your phone when you drop it. His idea won the award from the German Society for Mechatronics, which considered projects from students all over the country.
Frenzel’s idea behind this case was maintaining the phone’s aesthetic while providing the necessary protection. Most secure cases are very bulky and it becomes hard to recognise your phone when it is lathered in a tough plastic case with ugly patterns. With active damping case, there isn’t a layer of unattractive protection in your face all the time. Instead, it enters a safety mode just as it starts free falling to the ground.
After juggling between different ways to protect the phone, Frenzel finally arrived at a very interesting solution. As seen in the video, he went ahead with a set of eight thin metal curls that normally lie flat inside the case. When the phone is released, they pop out and curl up, protecting the edges of the phone from impact. This considerably softens the blow compared to a flat contact with the concrete.
The case looks interesting and in the video, at least, effective. It is yet to enter a production stage and there is still no Kickstarter or Indiegogo page for it. We could be a while away from this case hitting the shelves.
