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Tech

This Smartphone Airbag Automatically Protects Your Phone When You Drop It

The design was a thesis project for a German engineering student.
The case open, and closed. Image: Frenzel + Mayer Solutions

A design for a smartphone case that deploys airbag-like bumpers if you drop it on the ground is blowing minds online. If you’ve ever accidentally felt the cringe-inducing momentary terror that is watching your phone descend towards the ground in real life slow motion—in other words, if you’re a human person—you’ll want to check this out.

The case was designed by Philip Frenzel, an engineering student at Aalen University in Germany, after four years of work. Frenzel thought up the design after cracking the display on more than one of his own phones, he told public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk. The flexible arms are hidden inside the sleek case on each corner and only deploy when tiny sensors inside detect that the phone is in free fall.

I’m not sure why nobody thought of this before but the genius of the design has not gone unnoticed. Frenzel was recently awarded the honor of outstanding work in the field of mechatronics from the German Society for Mechatronics. Now we just have to wait for his Kickstarter before the rest of us clumsy, careless hooligans can get our hands on a case of our own.

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