ROUNDUP: Why Aren't Phones Waterproof?
Plus Apple's Korean 3rd-party payment policy, cyberpirates at sea and more
Hey everybody. Here’s the roundup of some of the stories I worked on over the last week or so. The first one on making phones waterproof is available for everybody. Subscribers get the rest of the round up. Thanks so much for supporting the work!
Why Phones Aren’t Fully Waterproof
Associate Professor Ritesh Chugh at CQUniversity Australia has an article on The Conversation called "It’s 2022. Why do we still not have waterproof phones?"
Smartphones have varying levels of water resistance, some of them quite impressive. But they aren't water proof. Water proof means water can't get in.
You've likely heard phones described as being IP69 water and dust resistant or some such thing. What do those numbers mean?"
The IP in this case stands for the Ingress Protection rating. It's overseen by the International Electrotechnical Commission, a standards agency like IEE or ISO made up of companies, governments users, unions, and others.
Each IP rating has two numbers. The first is its rating of protection against solids, aka dust. The second number is its rating against water. The solid rating goes from 1-6 and the water rating from 1-9.
So IP 68 would mean dust-tight and almost water-tight.
The 8 rating for water means it can withstand continuous immersion but not high pressure jets of water. 9 is protected against the high pressure. "
But Samsung has phones certified IP 68. Yet they got fined in Australia last week for over-promising water resistance. What's that about?
That's because the 8 has some caveats. In Samsung's case it was resistant to immersion up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes. An iPhone with IP 68 is good at the 8 rating for up to 6meters for up to 30 minutes.
So basically if you drop them in water briefly they should be fine.
There are also other consideration like the chlorine or salt content int he water. That can corrode the exterior and cause damage to the phone especially the charging port. And waterproofing materials degrade over time so the older a phone gets the less waterproof it will be. And breaking it, cracking the screen or the case obviously adds a way for water and dust to get in.
So that helps us understand the ratings. But why can't they just make them fully after tight?
"Well the weak points are buttons and ports, as well as the camera. Depending on what you're sealing the vendor may use glue, adhesive strips, tape, silicone or rubber seals. And then a polymer coating can be added to the circuit boards to help repel water as well.A company called water developed a process for that injects an insulator into smaller devices like the Apple Watch and Fitbit. That all adds to the cost.
Xiaomi co-founder Li Jun once estimated making their phones waterproof would add 20-30% to the cost. "
Professor Chugh notes that there are some new methods that might help make it easier to waterproof a phone. A coating similar to the one applied to circuit boards might be added to the outside of the phone. This would have to be more durable since it would be subject to the war and tear of you touching it in a way that circuit boards are not. And circuit boards could be made on waterproof silicone.
Here’s what else I wrote about this week
- Apple’s 3rd-Party Payment Policy in Korea
- Startup For Bike Security Builds Little Bike Cages
- Cyberpirates at Sea
- Firefox Strips Out Tracking from URLs
- Taiwan Close to Launching Digital Currency
- 1Password Adds Secure Document-Sharing With Just a Link
- Brazil considering Making USB-C the Law
- Why Some M2 Mac Book pros Have Slower SSD Speeds
- Airbnb Makes Party Ban Permanent
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