World’s First Completely Washable Smartphone Launched in Japan

By: | January 31st, 2016

Japanese telecom giant KDDI’s washable smartphone ‘Digno rafre’

Most of us would have washed and scrubbed our smartphones long ago to get rid of all that dirt and kill bacteria if it didn’t mean turning your phone into a useless lump of dead electronics.

But not all phones that take a bath wind up dead.

Japanese company Kyocera has released the world’s first washable smartphone.

The “Digno rafre” phone has a completely washable body. But only a certain type of foamy soap can be used on the device. Digno Rafre is also rated for hot water resistance.

Kyocera claims that the phone is ideal for use in the kitchen, outdoors, or even the bath. The company also claims to have washed the smartphone more than 700 times to test its durability.

The completely sealed Rafre doesn’t have any external speakers. A smart sonic receiver transmits sound directly to the phone’s screen through vibrations. Rafre’s built-in 13MP camera is also waterproof.

Priced at ¥57,240 (about $464), the phone is currently available in Japan only.

Watch this brilliant commercial, marketing the Rafre, aimed at parents who want to keep their smartphones clean from their small children who keep dropping the phone everywhere.

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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