There is no expression quite like the look of terror that hits someone’s face when his or her smartphone accidentally takes a bath. Be it poolside, table-side, bar-side or toilet-side, people’s grip on their phones tends to mysteriously loosen whenever water is around. But there’s hope: A “nano-coating” service from a company called Liquipel could mean the difference between your heart skipping a beat followed by a good laugh, and having to spend hundreds of dollars on a replacement phone out of contract.
California-based Liquipel is not a new company and the “watersafe” service it provides has been around for some time. As the summer heats up and people head to the beach for relief, however, revisiting the company’s service could potentially save smartphone users some heartache.
Liquipel’s waterproofing solution isn’t an ugly case. In fact, it doesn’t affect the look of a device at all. Instead, the company uses a nano-coating procedure that coats all internal and external components of a device with a water-resistant film that is invisible to the naked eye. The result is not a completely waterproof smartphone, but Liquipel-treated devices will survive most splashes and quick dips that would instantly destroy most stock smartphones.
The company’s watersafe treatment starts at $59 for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and it takes one to two days complete once the company receives the device in the mail. For an extra $10, Liquipel will rush an order and ship out a treated phone on the same day it receives it. In addition to Apple’s iPhone lineup, Liquipel’s service is available for seven HTC phones, five Motorola devices and six Samsung smartphones.
