I've broken my fair share of phones.
Some on purpose, some not so much.
But these guys have it down to a science.
I think sometimes people here in meetings drop their phones on purpose.
it almost feels like it sometimes.
We went to the Otterbox labs in Fort Collins Colorado to figure out how they make their cases tough enough to protect your phone from just about anything.
Three, two, woah
It starts with getting the phone specs from the manufacturer.
if it's a galaxy phone they'll have them ahead of lunch but in the case of an iPhone, even otter boxes are kept in the dark.
About every conference room is booked and we're live streaming the Tim Cook speech as well
Following all the information, all the details and stuff.
Within 24 hours, they're ready to 3D print cases in this monster printer to get the feel for how it would work on an actual phone and make the necessary changes before they go to mass production.
And that's not even the half of it.
The real testing happens inside the pit.
An entire lab devoted to torturing cases.
Each one goes through a minimum of 24 tests.
A lot are industry standards, while others were inspired by customer horror stories.
And that's how they came up with the purse test.
This transformed Maytag dryer sends a phone inside of a purse holding loose change, keys and even a nail file about 100 tumbles with a meter drop at each end.
Then there's what looks like a tanning bed for phone cases which tests UV exposure, also a machine that rubs the piece of fabric on the case over and over again, and one whose sole purpose in life is to press a button.
Really we're putting a wrapper, if you will, on someone else's product.
When we do that we want to make sure that we are not making the way that that thing performs, that device performs Any less than it would then when it's the bare, the naked device.
That include audio quality.
Some of the more rugged otter box cases and the water resistance life proof case assist brand of otter box under go test in a studio with this guy.
[INAUDIBLE]
I think it's wooky.
I'm not sure, definitely not English.
The dummy emits a series of sounds covering every pitch in the vocal spectrum.
The test said the case won't muffle your conversations.
Love you, too.
Okay.
Bye.
[SOUND] [LAUGH]
After a day of putting these cases through the ringer, I asked if they ever pushed them beyond the standard testing limits, which is how I ended up standing below the guillotine, the ultimate torture machine that can drop a phone from up to two stories.
I'm worried more about myself than the phone.
[LAUGH]
One.
Watch the rope.
Two, three.
Whoa!
And though we didn't break anything on our visit, we learned that torture testing is a serious business.
[MUSIC]
