Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 13.28.16

Foolishly allowed a sticky-fingered child to hold your phone? Have a crippling fear of germs and wish you could disinfect everything? Now there’s a smartphone you can wash with soap and water!

It’s common knowledge that your computer keyboard can be home to as many germs as a toilet bowl. But while our the average keyboard spends its days in a home or office environment, our smartphones—whose input technology is based entirely around physical contact—are with us pretty much wherever we go. On the bus or train to work, waiting for your order at Starbucks, sitting on the toilet (don’t lie, you know you’ve done it); our smartphones are constantly in our hands, and those same hands touch a lot of dirty stuff during a typical day.

So wouldn’t it be handy if you could wash your phone with soap and water, just like you would your filthy, germ-ridden mitts? Japanese tech company Kyocera‘s new phone, the awkwardly named Digno Rafre, lets you do just that, and it’s available to buy now from Japanese mobile provider AU.

But just how soapy water can the Digno Rafre handle? Check out this demonstration video and see for yourselves:

▼ Bar soap, which still can collect in the phone’s various nooks and crannies, is off-limits, but foaming hand soap is perfectly safe.

Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 12.29.27

▼ Even the camera lens can be washed

Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 12.30.02

▼ Just when you thought the phone couldn’t get any quirkier, the demonstrator reveals a hidden TV aerial which, yes, is also completely soap-and-water-proof!

Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 12.30.25

▼ When you’re finished washing, just dry the phone with a towel.

Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 12.32.28

But its soapy water-resistant properties aren’t the only trick up the Digno Rafre’s sleeve—it also has a super-cheesy commercial to boot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc6eNqoLeQs

That family… It’s like watching a scene from a Japanese version of Fallout, isn’t it?

▼ “Don’t worry, Hiro, there’ll be plenty of swell kids to play with in the vault!”

Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 12.51.39

Digital Trends reports that the Digno Rafre is comes with Android 5.1 installed, measures 10.1 mm thick (so a fair bit more than the iPhone 6 at 6.8mm) and has a five-inch, 720p display as well as a 13-megapixel camera.

Is washable the future of smartphones? Maybe! In the meantime, go and have a good think about how dirty your own phone probably is…

Source: YouTube/AU
Images: YouTube/AU, YouTube/BuzzZap