Question about Phone Cases

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GlytchMeister
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Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

Right, I’m going to be getting a slightly newer phone in the near future and, because even refurbished old phones cost a few hundred bucks, I need to get a case to protect my investment so it can last at least a few years.

My problem is this: plugs.

Every single godforsaken case I’ve seen so far either doesn’t advertise you can have it plugged in and still remain waterproof/dustproof or they show a picture of how you have to open the case up to let a plug in. Thus completely breaking the seal.

Even worse, this sort of arrangement is, even when said flaps are closed, not waterproof, not dustproof, and not even pocket-lint-proof. The flaps completely defeat the purpose of a case with the exception of impact resistance.

Otterbox, Incipio Atlas, LifeProof - they all do this so far as I can tell.

It can’t be that hard to make a case that is waterproof/dustproof even when there are cords involved - really, all you need to do is put a male/female plug extension into the case. So the case plugs into the phone, and cords plug into the case.

I remember someone mentioning in passing IRL a while back about some kind of case that does exactly that, but I can’t find the damned thing anywhere online.

Help?
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ShneekeyTheLost
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by ShneekeyTheLost »

Mmm... not sure that would work, the whole 'case plugging into phone and jack plugging into case'. Pretty sure if you have the case plugged into the phone, it'll make a permanent closed connection as far as the phone is concerned, and will eff up your battery in record time, with it draining out super fast.

Not sure if you can make a waterproof case that has a jack port. You could do water resistant, probably to 20 feet or about five minutes consistent submersion with a flap that seals when closed. Be a big bear of a flap, which would need its own tupperware-like seal, but you could do it. Probably wouldn't last forever, but then, these days... neither do phones. It'd probably last longer than the six months until your carrier told you that your hardware is no longer being supported, which seems to be the norm these days :roll:
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

As long as it’s just an extension-style plug, I don’t think it would close any circuits - they would only be closed when something else is plugged into the case.

It’d be like plugging a charge cable into the phone without plugging the other end into anything. As far as the phone is concerned, nothing is plugged in.
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

Although, if nobody has actually done this... I have a business proposition...
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Just Old Al
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Just Old Al »

Mold the jack entensions into the bottom of the case - and then the phone plugs onto those and is held on my an elastometric device at the top. Buttons are easy enough with flexible case sections. Big issue is screen touch - that screen's got to stay exposed somehow.

It's a lot like a TNG Kllingon female warrior's outfit - armor everywhere but the bloody cleavage.
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

Just Old Al wrote:Mold the jack entensions into the bottom of the case - and then the phone plugs onto those and is held on my an elastometric device at the top. Buttons are easy enough with flexible case sections. Big issue is screen touch - that screen's got to stay exposed somehow.

It's a lot like a TNG Kllingon female warrior's outfit - armor everywhere but the bloody cleavage.
Actually, no. There are hard-glass screen protectors made of Corning Gorilla Glass that works really well with touchscreens. I’m using an off-brand right now (because the flimsy plastic one that came with the otterbox sucked) and I can’t tell the difference between the original screen and the protecting glass.

Mine is stick-on, but I imagine a case could use something like this.
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Warrl
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Warrl »

GlytchMeister wrote:As long as it’s just an extension-style plug, I don’t think it would close any circuits - they would only be closed when something else is plugged into the case.
Something else such as... water?
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Just Old Al »

Warrl wrote:
GlytchMeister wrote:As long as it’s just an extension-style plug, I don’t think it would close any circuits - they would only be closed when something else is plugged into the case.
Something else such as... water?
Unless it's ocean or higher in salt content not a huge issue, I suspect. volts would take a very conductive liquid to do anything real.
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

Right. And besides, a drained battery is better than a water-damaged phone. And hell, you could put little flaps like I described above to at least make those bits kinda sorta splash resistant.

Also, my iPhone, and I assume androids, can decide not to use something plugged into it if it detects something’s wonky about it. It’ll say “this device may not be supported” and it won’t send or receive data or power through it. So if water does get into the case’s external plugs, the phone will probably say “nope.”

Also, if some saltwater or some other kind of schmutz gets into the external ports, maybe you can take the phone out and wash the case. Let it dry out, put it back on.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by DinkyInky »

The screen protector for my tablet is the one Military folk use, and it for the most part is self healing from minor cuts. If I bothered to get a smartphone rather than the pratical dumbphone I have, I'd get a Samsung Galaxy phone(older version, maybe an S4 or 5)and an Otter Box Preserver for it, which sounds like the one you probably want Glytch.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by lake_wrangler »

I have had a cell phone now since last March or so. Some time after my friend upgraded his Galaxy Note 4 to a Galaxy Note 6, he gave me his old Galaxy Note 2.

Following the link to the Otter Box website, I find that the oldest Galaxy Note they have a case for is the Note 4...

Will I be upgrading any time soon? Not on your life!

While I sometimes, though rarely, check my emails on it, I don't check Facebook or anything else of the sort, I turned off most notifications (I'm looking at you, YouTube...), and only use the Power Saving mode for location. And any time I use Google Maps (or Gas Buddy, while traveling), I have to go and turn the location back down to Power Saving...

In fact, I use the "smart" functions and apps more when I travel than any other time... And it does all I need it to do so far... so why would I ever upgrade?

I, for one, care nothing about trends or about the latest fashions. I upgrade stuff when there is a need for it. Period.



(BTW, this is not meant to be seen as coming down - or even merely looking down - on people who upgrade stuff regularly... It just happens to be a conversation about cell phones, and that is all I could contribute...)
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by DinkyInky »

lake_wrangler wrote:I have had a cell phone now since last March or so. Some time after my friend upgraded his Galaxy Note 4 to a Galaxy Note 6, he gave me his old Galaxy Note 2.

Following the link to the Otter Box website, I find that the oldest Galaxy Note they have a case for is the Note 4...

Will I be upgrading any time soon? Not on your life!

While I sometimes, though rarely, check my emails on it, I don't check Facebook or anything else of the sort, I turned off most notifications (I'm looking at you, YouTube...), and only use the Power Saving mode for location. And any time I use Google Maps (or Gas Buddy, while traveling), I have to go and turn the location back down to Power Saving...

In fact, I use the "smart" functions and apps more when I travel than any other time... And it does all I need it to do so far... so why would I ever upgrade?

I, for one, care nothing about trends or about the latest fashions. I upgrade stuff when there is a need for it. Period.



(BTW, this is not meant to be seen as coming down - or even merely looking down - on people who upgrade stuff regularly... It just happens to be a conversation about cell phones, and that is all I could contribute...)
Glytch's issue is he cannot make his iPhone work with the new software upgrade, so a hardware upgrade is essential, and he's thinking of transitioning to a 'droid.
I have been resisting upgrading my phone, but many providers keep saying they're not going to support flip-phones, so upgrade now before you're SOL. Still holding out.

My sister very sporadically upgrades her smartphones, and for her job, she sorta needs a smartphone. She's had a Galaxy, a Galaxy S4, a Galaxy S8...if she keeps on like this, 12 will be the next one. Some of these smartphones cannot handle upgrades to software. When it does, you upgrade, or lose the ability to use it. I absolutely hate it. I use my cellphone for two reasons: Talk and text. It's all I need it to do. I have a portable PC in the form of my tablet, and I have a laptop. Why do I need my phone to be more than a phone? If I have to upgrade, I'm locking down everything possible, and keeping it strictly talk/text, snoops turned off, no data net usage if I can help it(also salty that I'll be forced to buy a data package that will significantly increase my monthly bill. I like my cheapo plan thanks much).
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by lake_wrangler »

DinkyInky wrote:Glytch's issue is he cannot make his iPhone work with the new software upgrade, so a hardware upgrade is essential, and he's thinking of transitioning to a 'droid.
I have been resisting upgrading my phone, but many providers keep saying they're not going to support flip-phones, so upgrade now before you're SOL. Still holding out.

My sister very sporadically upgrades her smartphones, and for her job, she sorta needs a smartphone. She's had a Galaxy, a Galaxy S4, a Galaxy S8...if she keeps on like this, 12 will be the next one. Some of these smartphones cannot handle upgrades to software. When it does, you upgrade, or lose the ability to use it. I absolutely hate it. I use my cellphone for two reasons: Talk and text. It's all I need it to do. I have a portable PC in the form of my tablet, and I have a laptop. Why do I need my phone to be more than a phone? If I have to upgrade, I'm locking down everything possible, and keeping it strictly talk/text, snoops turned off, no data net usage if I can help it(also salty that I'll be forced to buy a data package that will significantly increase my monthly bill. I like my cheapo plan thanks much).
I am fortunate in that I do not need any particular software that will force me to upgrade and, to my knowledge, my phone service provider is not going to force me up, either. (So far, anyway... Though they tried suggesting I did, at signup time... Like, 5 bucks more per month, for a 24 month contract on a new cell phone, and twice the money for 6 times the data... But I don't need all that data: I have yet to reach my 1GB monthly limit... :roll: )

Unlike you, though, I do not yet have a tablet, so my phone is useful at times for stuff I could otherwise use a tablet for. As it stands, I still bring my laptop with me on trips, but my phone is way faster than my laptop...

I have to admit, though, that I find it hard to believe the number of privileges some apps ask for, that, to me, seem completely unrelated to anything the app is actually made to do...
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

Another concern about old software is security. I've already had my number spoofed and it's brought me a whole galaxy of fun, I'm here to tell ya. ID theft, privacy, and, in my case because I've... Eh... Made enemies... and the case of many a woman who turned down a guy without the capacity to take no for an answer and a severe deficit of gentlemanly character and honor, stalking and spying.

Dinky is opting for the security through obscurity tactic as well as having nothing worth hacking for on her phone... And also having plenty of other layers of security on her personal info... And she's also a badass.

I, unfortunately, use Pandora (keeps me sane at work - the truck has no radio), google maps because if I don't have an area memorized, I WILL get lost... And it takes a while for me to build a mental map of an area (I'm much better in the woods with a map and compass, but put me in a city and I'm kinda hopeless...) and the Internet to look up info when needed, to check in on forums and such, and to try to stay on top of news... And I like getting emails on my phone because a lot of very important alerts come to me via email - insurance, job opening alerts, bank alerts, stuff like that.

Oh, and weather. I have a nervous disposition regarding weather, and I like to be prepared. Old Boy Scout habits die hard.

A lot of the other stuff doesn't even have access to my cell data, and nothing has access to my location except weather when I'm driving long-distance and need alerts for what I'm driving into. Sometimes I play puzzle games, but that doesn't require data either.

I try to minimize what apps can have, but I'm a bit more technophilic than most residents of this forum, so I have to be mindful of my software security.

The only reason I upgraded my iPhone 5s to iOS11.1.1 from iOS10.(something) was for a major security patch. I wouldn't have upgraded if all it was was the messed-up UI and more emojis. That's not really a priority.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Warrl »

GlytchMeister wrote:I have a nervous disposition regarding weather
Living in tornado country, you should be nervous about weather for at least a few months each year. Those buggers can spring up with not-much warning, and there's no predicting just where one will go.

Other parts of the country get various sorts of extreme weather, but mostly not that extreme and mostly with much greater warning and predictability.

(Granted: every state in the union has had tornadoes. But in many states they are both rare and comparatively small. I remember the record-tying occasion in 1994 when the state of Washington had two tornadoes on the same day. Both were categorized as F-0. According to the Tornado History Project, Arizona has recorded 243 tornadoes since 1952; Illinois, since 1950, has recorded 2,420, or barely shy of 10 times as many.)
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Typeminer »

DinkyInky wrote:Why do I need my phone to be more than a phone? If I have to upgrade, I'm locking down everything possible, and keeping it strictly talk/text, snoops turned off, no data net usage if I can help it(also salty that I'll be forced to buy a data package that will significantly increase my monthly bill. I like my cheapo plan thanks much).
I had a nice Samsung 2G slider Tracfone until I got my canoe pinned in a tree one day, and a night underwater turned out to be too much for the dry bag. (But 2G support died about 6 months later, so I'd have needed a new phone anyhow.)

I replaced it with a $20 Android 4.4 Tracfone. It's actually cheaper to operate for my purposes, because I'm never going to use most of the smartphone features, and Carlos Slim has cut the cost of voice minutes in favor of pushing add-on data megabytes (which I don't need, because I'm never going to use most of the smartphone features). It's only slightly larger than the slider phone, and it's easier for text because it has a little touchscreen keyboard. Not a very good keyboard, but a whale of an improvement over texting with a number keypad.

I'll admit, learning to use it was a bitch. It's a computer that can make phone calls, not a phone that has some computer functions, so it was a new OS to deal with. I generally like it, though.

Should mention that I still have a landline, and I work from home, so the Tracfone is not my primary phone, but it probably costs me no more than $10/month overall, for what is unlimited service for my purposes.

But I should also mention that when I went to the Cascades in September, the thing lost service somewhere in Montana and could not find a signal anywhere in Montana or Washington for 8 or 9 days. Apparently the network arrangements are not the best, but the phone itself is pretty good.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Catawampus »

I've only ever owned flip-open mobile phones, not smart phones, so I don't have much practical experience with the latter. But one problem I could see for having the plugs built-in on the case is that unless all of the plugs are on the same side of the phone, you'll have a heck of a time getting the phone into the case. You'd need to either have the case be considerably larger than the phone, or else have so many hinged sections that you'd be risking breaking the waterproof seal.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by jwhouk »

Most cases are phone specific, meaning they have openings for the plugs and such for the model they're built for. Case in point (literally) is the Targus case for my SE.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by GlytchMeister »

Catawampus wrote:I've only ever owned flip-open mobile phones, not smart phones, so I don't have much practical experience with the latter. But one problem I could see for having the plugs built-in on the case is that unless all of the plugs are on the same side of the phone, you'll have a heck of a time getting the phone into the case. You'd need to either have the case be considerably larger than the phone, or else have so many hinged sections that you'd be risking breaking the waterproof seal.
Could have the back split at the halfway point and use some kind of tensioner to hold the seal, or use a flexible material where necessary.
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Re: Question about Phone Cases

Post by Warrl »

Most phones only have two sockets that you'd need to plug and unplug things with any frequency, and they are usually side by side on the top or bottom edge of the phone. Although occasionally the USB connector will be on the bottom and the headphone jack on top.

Actual physical buttons are also an issue. There usually are three: one button by itself and two buttons together (volume control among other functions). But none of the three move very much so that shouldn't be hard to deal with.

There is another externally-accessible socket on most Android phones, for a microSD card. However, it's unusual for a given phone over its working life to have a card inserted or removed more than twice - inserted when the phone is new, and removed when the phone is being retired, and perhaps removed and replaced with a different card once in the meantime. I've had phones where you had to open the case and remove the battery to get to the microSD card. So it's okay to make that inaccessible, provided the case can be removed and reinstalled.
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