The Bottlephone:Trash Smartphone Cover

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Intro: The Bottlephone:Trash Smartphone Cover

I hear you thinking: this is awesome!

I humbly agree with you. A glamorous smartphone cover, designed to withstand spatter and falls from about the same height you would comfortably drop a naked smartphone. Make your friends jealous, for you are the only one that has a plastic bottle that can SMS, whatsapp, take photo's, internet, MMS (I have never successfully received one) and more!
The Smartbottle has smart-sense technology and enables the user to use their phone through the plastic!

Disclaimer: this may be obvious, but some of the steps may damage your phone if not careful. Phones are not designed to be subjected to large amounts of heat. Also, plastic fumes are toxic. Don't inhale the fumes and conduct this project outside.

That said, please use your brain, it must surely be a better model than mine. So go find that damaged phone and pimp it up!

STEP 1: Tools and Materials

  • PET bottle (smartphone sized)
  • heat gun or hairdryer
  • scissors or exacto knife
  • smartphone (not your most precious one I suggest)
  • coffee (optional but highly suggested, quality tools make for a simpler job)

STEP 2: Size Up Your Bottle

I would need to be large enough for obvious reasons.

STEP 3: Cut Bottom

STEP 4: TAKE OUT YOUR BATTERY!!

before going any further, take out the battery. Melting your phone is a lot more fun when it is not exploding in your face. But the back back.

STEP 5: Heat the Plastic

PET bottles shrink when heat is applied. We can use this property to our advantage here. Start at the bottom to enclose the phone and stop it from escaping. Then you can evenly heat the rest to shrink it properly around the phone. Be sure to leave a little room where the buttons go, so these are not pressed by the plastic.

Especially for you kind people at Instructables, I heated my phone up more than I was comfortable with. The phone still works, But I urge you to take pauses and let the phone cool off.

STEP 6: Trim

Trim the plastic at the bottom to size so you have a neat Smartbottle, just out of the factory.

STEP 7: Reïnsert Battery

Remove bottlecap to push out the phone from the fresh case. Reïnsert the battery and give it a test!

STEP 8: Show Off

Show of your rad phone to friends and strangers.
The Bottlephone is suitable for extravagant, strange or otherwise socially nonconform people.

Ideas: Turn the phone upside down in the bottle and seal off with silicone and you (probably) have a waterproof phone. Charging could then happen when the bottle cap is screwed off.

11 Comments

An awesom and somehow crazy idea! I really love it. Good way to ruggedize your smartphone.

Great idea for when you are at a high risk of getting pick-pocketed!... I guess :)

Woah! Good idea. I wonder if there's other forms of camoflauge? Maybe even with a second sheathe to cover the phone part.

i do to step 8 show off

I love how you made a step called “Show off”. XD

Haha, thanks! It is one of the more important ones I think. Many instructables could benefit from such a step ;)

Ha! I'll make that a step in my next Instructable and see how it works.

Great idea, although I wouldn't try it on a brand new phone because of the melting part. Could this be done with a phone-dummy, like a block of wood the same size as a phone?

Being a semi-Luddite, reluctantly, I hope that being a phone-dummy won't keep me from doing this project. Yes, I learned computers when they were tape-drives. 8-D

Yes, that is a great idea! A phone dummy! A woodblock would do I think!