A new generation of smart phone market - what design challenges will waterproof mobile phones face?

Take a look at the iPhone 4/4s 3.5mm headphone jack and you will find a small spot. This is a water-discolored paint that once it gets wet, it will turn red permanently. You might think that adding this feature to your phone is to prevent a deceptive warranty or insurance claim: "My phone just stopped working... I didn't do anything special, so I want a new one."

It seems a bit too much before I see the statistics. According to a survey conducted by GoodMobilePhones.co.uk, more than 30% of people in the UK have damaged their phones because they wet their phones. Nearly half (47%) of the phones fell into the toilet. One in five (21%) people splashed their drinks on their phones.

In fact, Japanese consumers now see waterproof as a key feature of most mobile phones – even high-end phones need this feature if they are going to sell well.

So it is no wonder that manufacturers including Sony and Samsung are starting to produce waterproof phones. Strategy AnalyTIcs' independent test object is Sony's first waterproof phone, the Xperia Z1, which achieves IP58 entry protection (highest liquid protection rating), which means the phone can sneak into 1.5 meters of fresh water. Up to 30 minutes.

As new generations of wearable devices continue to hit the market – such as smart watches – the need for waterproof technology is becoming more and more important.

To achieve IP58 protection, the Sony combination uses a tight seal and an "adhesive" layer on the back cover to tightly bond the back cover to the body of the phone to prevent water and dust from entering the component.

What are the design challenges facing waterproof phones?

Figure 1: Sony's flagship phone, the Xperia Z2, is water resistant for 30 minutes in shallow water. But how can we improve it further?

There are other methods that have been developed, but they are not yet widely available, such as ion membranes (Ion-Mask). The ion membrane is a technology developed by British military scientists in 2007 that uses a plasma-bonded waterproof layer.

But, just like anyone who wants to replace a battery with a waterproof watch, the seal or waterproof layer is only a temporary measure. In order to build a permanent waterproof phone, we need to develop a shell without holes; how to achieve this goal without sacrificing the functionality of the phone?

A quick observation of high-end mobile phones reveals that there are nine key areas to consider. Battery compartment, flash memory, SIM card slot, USB port for data transfer and charging, and speakers, microphone, any physical buttons, and of course a headphone jack.

Headphone jack

The first Bluetooth headset was launched at the turn of the century. Bluetooth headsets are now very popular, supporting both standard phone voice and high-quality audio connected to a home stereo system.

battery

This is a relatively easy to repair and perfect place. Neither the iPhone nor the Google Nexus series allows you to change batteries or add extra memory. Consumers are happy to accept this arrangement because the battery is barely damaged during the two-year life of the phone and is covered by the warranty.

Flash Card

This is another place that is relatively easy to handle. Like the battery, no matter whether it is the iPhone or the Google Nexus series, it is not allowed to add a flash card. For example, the Nexus 5 is available in 16GB or 32GB models, and the iPhone offers 64GB models in addition to these two capacities.

One reason for doing this is the cost of memory. Today's memory costs are reduced enough to integrate enough capacity to ensure that a premium phone doesn't fill up with data for two years—and will not be eliminated by the market. At the same time, cloud storage reduces the need for oversized hard drives. Take Google for example, which allows you to store 20,000 songs on its music server, while platforms such as Netflix and LoveFilm mean you can play video streams on your phone at any time without having to store the video on your phone.

However, this does have a problem. If you cancel the USB cable port, how can you provide content at high speed?

What are the design challenges facing waterproof phones?

Figure 2: You can see at a glance that there are several mouths on the iPhone that may enter the water. If we want a truly waterproof phone, these mouths must disappear.

data transmission

USB, especially USB 3.0 with transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbps, provides a fast way to achieve high-speed data transfer that needs to be matched by some wireless replacement technology. Mobile phones generally only have three wireless standards, namely Wi-Fi (802.11n is the most common, its typical transmission speed is 130Mbps or less), Bluetooth (typical speed is 1Mbps) and NFC (the fastest speed is 424kbps, and requires contact) .

But this is changing, and faster Wi-Fi standards are under development. 802.11ac operates in the 5 GHz band and is already implemented on dual-band and three-band Wi-Fi chipsets with typical transmission speeds ranging from 1.7 Gbps to 2.5 Gbps. According to ABI, all Wi-Fi chipsets delivered in 2015 About 80% of them will have 802.11ac capabilities.

In addition, some large companies are developing the next generation of Wi-Fi technology - 802.11ad Wi-Fi (more well known as WiGig). This technology uses the unlicensed 60 GHz band with 7 GHz bandwidth. The wireless technology supports speeds of up to 5 Gbps. ABI expects to have 1.4 billion tri-band Wi-Fi chipsets delivered in this 60 GHz band by 2018.

However, the complex sampling rate coupled with the fact that three companies—Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom lack sufficient R&D funding—means that small companies will continue to struggle in this potentially huge market.

Market leaders will come from companies that adopt IP business models, such as the well-known Blu Wireless Technology, which develops IP that allows those vendors to quickly create and deliver chips with this capability.

Charging

But the USB port is also used to charge the phone, so an alternative charging method is needed. Although wireless charging is not a new technology, it has only recently been adopted by mobile phone manufacturers - including Nokia, LG and HTC, but the strange thing is that there is no Apple.

Physical button

The launch of the first iPhone just seven years ago accelerated the transition to touchscreen devices. Now we are used to typing emails and messages on virtual keyboards, but we are still often frustrated by the mistake of typing, accidental touches, and guessing what we really want to type.

In general, this is a step forward, but there should be touch-sensitive features that make it unnecessary for us to look closer to the fingers or how the hands move. Recall that when typing on an old mobile phone keyboard, every key press is perfect, although the phone sometimes converts "fancy a pint" to "fancy a riot".

Almost all phones have some buttons. For example, the Nexus 4 has only one on/off and one volume rocker. The iPhone 5 implements a physical home button, a shutdown button, two independent volume buttons, and a mute switch.

The tactile function has evolved over several generations, and the mechanical vibrations of the first generation system have shaken the entire phone to make people feel terrible, while modern third and fourth generation systems can be based on specific applications, touch points and even the power we press. Calibrating the response means that we can achieve these subtle touches again, eliminating holes in the phone case.

While some initial applications—such as Senseg's E-Sense—are focused on creating screen textures using the Coulomb effect, others are developing sophisticated, configurable button press sensations. Redux Labs in the United Kingdom is a company that uses bending wave physics to control the feel it provides to touch points and implements a large library of touches.

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