The Growing Trend of Water Resistant Smartphones

For a majority of consumers, smartphones are an indispensable device, providing an unprecedented level of connectivity and convenience. This is why, if you’ve ever accidentally gotten your phone wet, you understand how important water resistance is as a feature. Worldwide, nearly 900,000 smartphones get damaged by liquids every single day at an annual cost of more than $96.7 billion (Source: IDC).

Until fairly recently, the trend in consumer electronics has been to make devices faster, smarter and lighter, but waterproofing has become the new focus of global electronics manufacturers, and most brands are rushing to include this benefit to ensure they are not left behind. In fact, in a recent YouGov poll of the most wanted smartphone features in the U.S. market, water resistance came in third, ahead of a higher-resolution camera and hands-free technology.

Since water-resistant standards play a big role in making next-generation handheld and wearable digital devices more durable, the industry has adopted the IPX8 water resistance standard, which mandates protection against submersion in water under conditions, which are identified by the manufacturer. In order to fulfill the requirements of sealing tapes for waterproofed designs according to IPX8, our tapes are tested to resist penetration even when immersed in water.

At tesa, we test our products not only with IPX8, but also do the more advanced shock and waterproof tests in combination. We test the sealing abilities of our products even on uneven parts as well as the resistance to a variety of different real-life environmental stresses, including shock, tumbling, and temperature extremes. In our laboratories, our tapes have to withstand different shock and waterproof tests one after the other: In a first step, the test substrate of tesa® 756xx is exposed to thermal cycles between -40°C and 85°C. After this the substrate is exposed to the DuPont impact test. Finally, the substrate is immersed into water at the IPX8 test.

Smartphones that can survive rain, a dip in the pool, or a spilled glass of wine are no longer a niche product. Consumer demand for waterproofing will continue to grow, and more and more portable electronics manufacturers have begun to integrate advanced materials and waterproof technology into the user experience. The logic is clear: a smart phone that can survive life’s little accidents is good for both the brand and the bottom line. To learn more about tesa’s advanced adhesive waterproofing solutions, please contact us via the contact below.