According to the Sony press release: Industry research demonstrates that consumers consider durability and water resistance as important features when purchasing a smartphone. For example, a study conducted in Japan by Mobile Marketing Data Labo** highlighted water resistance in the top three most important features for smartphone buyers. In a recent poll.
Earlier this weeks stories circulated about Nokia's intents on making their Lumia line of smartphones water resistant using their own nanotech solution for such a feature. Weather or not those stories were accurate, the trend seems clear: protect
(The press and bloggers tend to report devices like the Xperia go and Xperia acro S as being "water proof." Given this mislabeling, it would be wise for vendors to be clear about the level of water protection. These are not device to go deep-sea diving with.)
Will all mobile devices soon come with a rain coat?
Water-resistant phones are nothing spanking new: back in the year 2001 at the massive CeBIT trade show, I saw several demos of working handsets submerged in bubbling fish tanks and even phones in Pyrex pots of boiling water. Although robust never caught on as a handset industry norm, I think many of us would have benefited at least once from robust innovation. Weather it be a run in the rain, a day at the beach, or other odd water-related accidents, the comfort of knowing that your personal trusted device can take a splash or two along the way is certainly worth something above the marginal cost to the bill of materials.
Over the past few months, we've seen several nano-tech based coatings with claims of making electronic devices highly resistant to water damage, inside and out. Namely, two solutions that have made the news are Liquipel and WaterBlock, two nano-tech coatings intended to enable devices to withstand the elements in this always-on era.
Now Nokia is talking up water resistance too. One Nokia executive has been showing the potential of its in-house nanotech research that could lead to much more resilient devices and many blogs are reporting that a Nokia executive in Western Europe has indicated that this could soon be a standard feature on Nokia's Lumia smartphone line. Nokia caught the audience's attention in the past with the potential of nanotech with its "Morph" animated video.
The companies behind Liquipel and WaterBlock are certainly discussing volume discounts with most major handset vendors, so water resistance could soon become the Gorilla Glass of the guts of the device.
I first started hearing about the possibilities of nanotechnology years ago and I’ve seen some really amazing slidesets and concept videos here and there over the years.
Nanotech will be to the ’10s what plastic was to the ’50s.
Last week I wrote a blog entry about a nanotech-based protective coating for devices called WaterBlock from a startup Hz0. (I said it looked like Gorilla Glass for the guts of the device.)
Here’s a very similar offering called "Liquipel" from a company with the same name. The company claims that Liquipel is a super-thin nanotech layer that is steamed onto and into devices. The company offers the service to individuals for $60, but I would think their business model is to go after big volume vendors. Needless to say, volume costs would have to come way down as to not harm BoM and margins.
On the company’s webpage they claim that their technology makes devices "waterproof" but what they seem to mean to say is water resistant.
Robust handsets are nothing new. Mainstream vendors such as Nokia, Samsung, and Sony | Ericsson have been showing beach-friendly phones for years. But they have always been a niche. Now it looks like the wet look is going mainstream.
It’s looking like Samsung and Apple are already starting to talk tough. If I were a competing handset vendor, I’d pick up the phone and call these vendors today. You don’t want to be all washed up.
If you haven’t seen any of Nokia's animated "Morph" videos demonstrating a vision of devices to come based on nanotechnology, take a look here. If nothing else, it’s very relaxing. But really quite inspirational.
Nanotech is really coming to save the day.
While water means life to practically all living things on earth, contact with a significant amount of water is a virtual death sentence for devices such as smartphones.
But this has got to be one of the first nanotechnology material implementations I think I’ve seen ready to be used in handsets. "WaterBlock" is a material coating created by a startup called HzO that is apparently looking for major smartphone makers as clients.
If it does what the backers say it doesn, WaterBlock could be to electronic guts what Gorilla Glass has been to the screen. At least some of the web-based demos appears impressive and the technology has received good feedback from CES 2012. While WaterBlock doesn’t waterproof a device, the coating does make gadgets water resistant.
