If having a plain old smartphone isn’t enough for you then maybe you will be interested in some of the cases and add ons which have been seeing the light of day at the CES in Las Vegas.
For example, there is the Yellow Jacket smartphone case. This is a pretty innocuous sounding name for something which is basically a highly powerful stun gun. The fact that it can deliver a high voltage electric shock means that it would be against the law to own one in the UK. Less painfully, it also contains a hidden extra battery which can double the battery life of your phone while you are away from home.
A Medical Diagnosis with a Smartphone
Another example of add ons for phones comes from Scanadu. This firm has produced a device which turns your phone into a medical tricorder which helps users self diagnose medical conditions. They are planning on developing more gadgets which can turn smartphones into medical help, such as urine analysis readers and other scanners, by sending the info to the phone’s app. As a new start up, they received over $10 million in funding and we can expect to see more products from them soon.
A rather simpler medical add-on is the Sensor Jacket which was on show at the CES. This is a gadget which allows the user to turn their phone into an infra red thermometer. This means that you can take someone’s temperature without even touching them.
Other ideas for adding useful stuff to you smartphone include cases with extra camera lenses, one with a powerful amplifier and an iPhone case which can take thermal images.
