This Smartphone Case Deploys Springy Arms To Survive Drops From Your Butterfingers

Dropping your smartphone can be a very expensive accident if you happen to crack the screen. There are plenty of cases out there that protect smartphones from drops and bumps, but a German engineering student named Philip Frenzel from Aalen University designed a slick smartphone case that could well be the future of device protection.

It looks like a normal case when just sitting around, but if you drop your device a sensor inside the case senses the freefall and flexible arms pop out of each corner to cushion the fall. The student says that he thought up the case after cracking the screen on more than one of his personal devices.

There aren't any details on just how the case works, but the arms that cushion the drop appear to be made from some sort of springy metal wrapped in plastic. With the arms deployed, the smartphone looks quite a bit like a spider.

Frenzel probably didn’t expect this smartphone case to get the sort of recognition it has, but he was awarded an honor for outstanding work in the field of mechatronics from the German Society for Mechatronics. It's not clear what the future plans are for this case, however, the natural place for it would be Kickstarter where clumsy phone owners can buy it for peace of mind.