If this really works how they say it does and if you could coat, lets say a $2500 MacBook Pro with something that cost under $100 then Im all for it. Here's to getting my hopes up!

Bauer22

No one's gonna comment on the Little Mermaid?

So this coating is done in a vacuum, but what about the little nooks and crannies and such? I mean, does that mean it's in a vacuum with full submersion as well? And what if there's air bubbles trapped within certain components, will they expand and crack?

dizzytired

@Mindfield:

That seems like an excellent observation. Proof is in the demo but, I'm also curious how the ports function with the coating or how they avoid coating the port.

Denver80203

what if you drop your phone or something? could the ground "puncture" the coating?

Nickolai_the_Russian_guy

This is cool and all, but what I REALLY need is a fountain pen that'll write under whipped cream.

strider_mt2k

Wow looks like all those underwater casing manufacturers are gonna go bust.

Yeebles

The piece of paper from 1619 invites one to a duel.
your built in paper speaker will fail I guess.

Valicious

nice but will it hold up to the average wear and tear?
...i could just think of it now another place to set my cell phone.ah..the fish tank

wilkart

@Mindfield: ou lost me on you ignorant comment

kevman90

Okay. They lost me here.

"Does not conduct electricity."

How does the headphone jack work then? The SIM card slot on the iPhone? The dock connector? These are things that kinda sorta need electrical conductivity to function.There's some spurious doublespeak going on here, so I'd really like to know more about how this works.

Mindfield

I'm surprised that this doesn't interfere with ports and such.

chrstphr

Now whats the thermal conductivity on that thing?

Fused7

I call bullshit, in the last clip of the iphone it look like their magical coating was getting ready to lift off like a NASA Space Shuttle.

Justapspfan

@Red Right Hand:

It's amusing how your comment comes right after mine lol

Jitty

sounds like a great contraceptive

Red Right Hand

It be even more funny/amazing to see them coat an entire PC with it and have it run underwater. Could this revolutionize water cooling or is the coating susceptible to thermal damage?

Jitty

@Mindfield: I was thinking the exact same thing, there needs to be conductivity for the phone to sync or play music through the headphone jack. I'm also curious if the touchscreen still works, seeing as they never use it, also how the mic and speakerphone would handle on an iphone or any device really.

pzich

I know this wouldn't be very gadget-y, but couldn't they coat whole books in this? I've always wanted something like this for books, if only it could be cheap enough to be feasible.

The Sword Master

Interesting name for the product. A Golden Shellback is the title for a person who's crossed the equator at the International Date Line, on a ship, boat or sub. Pretty rare status. I'm a regular Shellback, which is pretty common and means I crossed the equator (in the Navy in my case).

MyPetFly

So that's what Patrick Norton has been up to lately. I'd buy the tech mainly for the reason they advertised, my cellphone and nothing more.

Trowble (XBL/PSN)

Looks like a scam, in the iPod Touch demo, when it's playing The Fixx, you can see tha they have a plastic baggy over the top of the Touch. It's all wrinkly...do you see what I see?

Noobs-R-Us

Well one thing we know for sure after watching this video is that "jawdropped" is a word.

Towelie404

@Denver80203: I'm guessing that the coating must be so thin that as you push in your headphone plug, dock connector and sim card you scrape away just enough of the coating for contact to be made. There must be some explanation. Either that or they made the demonstration video using ethanol or distilled water and after you've sent all of your shiny gadgets to them the company ceases to exist. Hmmm, I think I'm gonna wait and see on this.

It would be nice not to have to worry about things getting wet. I do wonder how microphones and speakers would react to this treatment though. I'm betting sound quality suffers on one end or the other.

craig_16

The speaker/mic still working is the demo I want to see

thechansen

Oh yeah, and it is not an iPhone, it is an iPod Touch (no SIM card required).

Lestat

@brian1cj:

Okay, R. Kelly.

michaelwiggins

Hm.
Never, ever go for the "alpha" labeled anything. So I'm waiting for some rich dude to coat his Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III and go swimming with it before I bite.

shenanigans61

Too bad it cannot protect against scratches... otherwise this would be much better than the Invisashield.

Lestat

Finally, a service to allow prisoners to smuggle electrical gadgets up their arse without worrying about damaging them! Your iPod is on it's way uncle Joey!

atomx

hmmm, my iphone in the swimming pool. i cant wait to take a call underwater. i wonder how well thats guna turn out.

chizelord

the whole non-conductive is iffy since you need electricity to play music connected to the port, if they coated it, then it wouldn't play sounds.

Seems Plausible at one point but very implausible at another, hmmm?.

Mr.DuckSauce

very interesting, this should be standard on all portable devices

zed0

I can't wait to give my cell phone a golden shower.

brian1cj

@Noobs-R-Us: It does look like there's something more like thin plastic covering it in that shot, and to me the water seems to have an odd sheen on it, like either it's not water or has been doctored somehow (don't ask me how, it says TVGenius not ChemistryGenius).

But even if it's legit, the port issue is a biggie, since the coating would have to be non-conductive, but if there's a non-conductive coating on the contacts, I don't see how you'd be able to charge it or use any other cables.

TVGenius

Too bad with no airflow your MBP would quickly overheat and fry.

AlternateEarth

@michaelwiggins: LOL... ouch!

Lestat

OK So they will put a conformal coating on your stuff for $50. Since it takes some special equipment that's probably fair... If you need such a thing. The problem is that the first time you scrape a bit of it off plugging in the charger/headphones/battery etc it will be almost worthless.

Even still, I have serious doubts about this video. I can get some deionized water and sink some phones in it for a while too, coating or not.

John Laur

Could they be dunking everything in deionized (v.pure) water?

aelver

I'll stick to the tried and true method of not getting my gadgets wet in the first place.

flick152

I am wondering if its possible to even DO camera's with this stuff. IE would it screw up the optics of the CCD sensor?

Worst cast manufacs would only have to water and pressure proof the LENS assembly to the CCD and then use this coating for the rest of the camera.

Nerys

@Denver80203:
That's just it. They can't avoid coating something. This is an all-or-nothing proposition; a single component that is not waterproofed with this coating would short out the second it came into contact with any conductive liquid. Any electrical path that is joined to another electrical path by a conductive material -- say, water -- will cause the current to travel from one to the other via the bridge that's been created. First year electronics. Great if you want the current travelling that way. Not so much otherwise.

No matter how many ways I try to think this over I can't figure out how it works. The coating is supposed to prevent shorting, and it does that by effectively isolating every electrical component from every other electrical component and allowing current to flow only along whatever is sealed within that coating. (The circuit board's traces, IC contacts, etc.) Introducing an external conductive source -- like water -- shouldn't pose a problem because the water would be isolated from all of the electrical components within the device. But that very same thing that isolates water from the device electronics also, by definition, isolates other conductive materials, like headphone plugs and charging cables.

So what, then? Does the coating suddenly render the device capable of electrical induction? Power by osmosis? No sir, I don't get it.

Mindfield

@Nerys: If you check the site for this stuff, they specifically mention the possibility of doing cameras. They say the optics will be tricky, but it should be possible.

wild homes desires a pudding!

Yeah its pretty awesome, but will it blend?

-Brett

budboyy2k

I call farce.

Just because you put something in a vacuum doesn't mean it would get fully coated... You would have to drill a bunch of holes in the device. And the port thing is an issue. It would be pretty hard to coat it... Plus the coating is supposedly non-conductive. I suppose they could leave the coating off of the ports, but then the device would be shorted out at the headphone port, if not the docking port...

hammertime1994

@strider_mt2k: who doesn't?

Charging_Mooses

Actually, I just read the website and it says nowhere that the coating is non-conductive. It says that it simply repels liquids, keeping them from ever shorting things out in the first place. Also, on the headphone jack, the website says that it is removed by abrasive materials (think sand-paper or pumice), so a simple headphone jack might not suffice to remove it, much.

hammertime1994

Xbox 360 while boating FTW!

Quicksilver4648

Sounds like it could be Parylene, a vacuum-deposited coating that's been around for years (although it's kind of expensive).

[www.conformal-coating.com]

[en.wikipedia.org]

LittleJon

But there was a video, it must be real... didn't you know all video's on the internet are a source of truth and not fraudulent or edited in any way.

sonburn

@spectralveil: *its jack*

spectralveil

Also- The seal between a headphone cable and it's jack is probably good enough for shallow non-moving water.

spectralveil

What about moving parts? Fans turn in laptops, wouldnt the plastic coating be broken once the fan starts to move? Same thing as optical drive motors, something starts moving in the laptop, and BOOM, seal is broken, liquid seeps in, and we're all screwed.

gfellow

I don't think it would cause a short to have the head phone port not covered, head phone speakers are such small devices that the amount of current possible to flow through the port is very small, and is probably a super low voltage that it wouldn't damage anything.
(Although I don't actually believe this works- It's super difficult to make something that can be applied thin and is still non-conductive, and if they had this kinda thing they would spray all of the power lines with a thick coat of it for safety.) I'm calling B.S. on this.

spectralveil

For the demo they probably just plugged in the audio cable first and then coated it. I wondered the same thing as many others at that point, and I can only conclude that the coating may as well be a time capsule for your device. SIM and memory cards that are plugged in when it's coated are probably stuck that way forever.

Actually no, that can't be the case, since they replaced the battery on their fancy CB. Did they re-coat it after every replacement? I'm baffled.

Ah well, I'll uncover the mysteries of this process by having them coat an inflated balloon and then complaining and demanding to supervise after they explode it.

mhlaxp

hmmmm might actually be able to go swimming w/ my mp3s!!!!

graphx

Talk about a slippery advantage at the olympics! No speedo suit needed lol~!

kavex

oooo, AND i'd like to see it in salt water Northeast Maritime Institute!

Mike8606

@MyPetFly: regular shellback too

In any case water is a mess whether it works or not, and while it may provide protection there is obviously a limit... certainly no excuse to be reckless, there may be water trapped inside your gadget for more than 455 hrs... just saying, i'd call it a one time freebee for dropping your iphone in the toilet whilst trying to zip your trousers mid phone call. Still you'd need to have it carefully dried and perhaps even taken apart to ensure no fluid remains.

Mike8606

@Noobs-R-Us: I saw what you saw but that can be one of those screen covers people buy to not have their screens scratched up.

Plus the water looked fairly, I don't know, not necessarily dirty, but like it had oil in it.

Roivas

iphones speaker is too quiet. let alone shrink wrapped in some plastic , it would be almost muted.

aeroworks

this is fkin nice!

shanzi

I guess all you really need to do is to protect/coat the main board and connectors to other components so nothing shorts out.

Big question is does this ruin your warranty? I could see manufacturers adding this as a build-to-order option, but I don't think I'd send in my precious device.

FritzLaurel

Reminds me this experiment of a full desktop disassembled, but containing everything, including power supply, immerged completely into a recipient full of mineral oil, and running perfectly properly.

If this thing works though, it's quite nice.

zifc

not convinced, i want to see them submerge the devices in the sea, im thinking they used ethanol or distilled water.

citizen024

this is clearly bullshit.

how does it keep it waterproof with buttons movements, and how does it keep mics and speakers working, not to mention the ports corrosion.

adilator

its great for anyone who uses an iphone on the crapper.

urbanturban666

Not impressed. Just wrap your device in shrinkwrap.

2 problems from the video.

With the Itouch, when he was playing the video, and pressed the home key, he had to press it 4-5 times to get it to go to the home page. The button seems to be screwed up as a result of whatever they did with it.

Also with the Itouch, at the end of the video, when they have some video paused on screen and they zoom in, look at the left/top of the Itouch, it looks like a 3 year old who tried applying window tinting. Their are a ton of trapped air bubbles under the film.

It looks like total shit!

Alluvian

These types of coatings (conformal coatings) are used in industries where electronics need to be protected from say, salt spray or fog (rockets tend to be launched near oceans, and may sit for weeks in salt spray, or fog, or even better, salt fog). They coat everything that's exposed to the air. They are not usually applied to the whole device, but on the assembled electronics out of the case.

DWes

So you can send off your electronic device along with $50 and they will send it back with a magical coating that you can't see or feel or detect in any way that allows you to use the device in a way that it probably could already be used.

I'm not saying this is a fake, but I won't be convinced without seeing an iphone or something get destroyed by the same pool of water that the other one survived in without the camera cutting away in between. That and a few thousand early adopters trying it and reviewing it.

jaramilr

I suppose it's possible that instead of it insulating the device it is just extremely hydrophobic, kinda like WD-40 on steroids.

NinoHuman

Im no electronic guy at all BUT couldn't they, when applying the coating, NOT coat the headset jack etc and give you CAPS to cover them ?
at the end of the day it's probably just a BS scam. Ill stick with flick152 and just keep my stuff dry.. it's worked so far.

wannacook

technological trickery my behind.
i design military human machine interfaces for aircraft. its called locktite hysol. clear, enviroment resistant pcb coating to prevent moisture, fungus, dirt, dust or whatever from shorting leads. MIL-C-5541, class 3. nothin special.

whosaidwhat

hmm, i wonder if they just coat the laptop surface because i can't see how that would be good for the fans.

Justifan

Have none of you gadget geeks heard of the waterproof camera from Olympus? http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_digital_sw.asp I'm not saying this skin works. I have my doubts too as the camera is engineered from the beginning to function under water, skinned devices aren't. However, it is possible to have an electronic device be fully functional under water, even cameras!

AmoretteGadgey

Sorry, but I just can't trust magical Internet videos.
While I do understand they don't wanna reveal how it's made, too many questions will be left unanswered if they don't reveal some details.

So I'll just add this to my fake list, 'till they release more info.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

But it says in the ad that it's "splashproof" not "waterproof".

ronreal

@The Sword Master: books would be cool, it can be done.

TechatNMI

@citizen024: Sorry it was water right out of the tap. And, we've used salt water right of Buzzards Bay her in MA

TechatNMI

@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: ouch, stop by Fairhaven, MA and we'll give you a demo.

TechatNMI

@LittleJon: lol . . . i wish it were that easy. However, that's where this all began, Golden Shellback is much more complicated than this simplified solution but we applaude your vision as its apparent we think alike. Maybe you should come work us and we will teach you something about 21st century coatings. Thsnks again for your input. We have all had a good laugh.

TechatNMI

WIN.

dandaman247

The ocean just got a lot less mysterious.

Jackson

@TechatNMI: when can I get this done to my new iPhone?????

banmojo