We had the opportunity to visit theplant manufacturing Gigaset including his laboratory of test. This is how we share with you our machines for torturing smartphones favorites.
Sadism is that perverse feeling of satisfaction that some feel in the face of the suffering of others. If you think this definition suits your personality well, then this article might be for you. Rest assured, we will never broadcast gory and violent images on Idroid. Here, the tone is light and good-natured since we are going to be interested in the torture… of smartphones.
I had the opportunity to travel to Germany, to the small town of Bocholt, to visit the Gigaset factory. The company is one of the leaders in fixed telephony, but quite recently it has also entered the smartphone market. And like any manufacturer, the North Rhine-Westphalia-based firm must test its finished models by subjecting them to a series of laboratory tests.
It was therefore the opportunity to share with you here some examples of tests selected by us. The idea is mostly to show the kind of machines and mechanisms that can be used to make sure that a smartphone works properly.
The dust storm
A smartphone has connections as well as a few interstices on either side of the object. In short, there are holes that can eventually let in dust. Logically, it is therefore necessary to check that these spaces are well filled so as not to let the slightest particle pass and to protect the internal components of the device.
What could be better than a dust storm to test this out? In the photo below, you can see two smartphones in a wind tunnel.
And now here's a little GIF to show off said storm. You don't need to bend over your screen, it's okay if you can't see the phones anymore.
The frantic pressing of the buttons
Has anyone ever patted you on the shoulder all the time just to annoy you? It is a bit what the devices undergo here on their three lateral mechanical buttons (volume and unlocking). The process is repeated here 100 times, which according to Gigaset officials corresponds to a use of 000 years.
Smartphones are dusty since they just came out of the previous machine
I also take this opportunity to show you what the machine that tests the jack looks like. This is tested 5 times.
The trouser pocket
We were talking earlier about dust. But the pockets of our pants are full of small odds and ends of all kinds (special mention to the small balls of fabric). And if you are used to storing your smartphone there, it is always reassuring to know that this mess will not impact the health of your precious cell phone.
It is therefore with great joy that I share with you my favorite test here: inserting the smartphone into a jeans pocket. Here too, the maneuver is repeated 5 times.
So much for this overview of torture. Crash tests are obviously also carried out, but I was not able to witness the smartphone being thrown on the ground, unfortunately. Ditto for the temperature: there is a machine to test the terminals to sudden changes in temperature. The latter thus pass in a few seconds from one environment at 55 ° C to another at -20 ° C.
The purpose of my visit was above all to observe the very atypical production method of the Gigaset GS185 - which prides itself on being made in Germany - and I will meet you very soon to explain this in a dedicated paper. As a reminder, we had already had a small preview of the manufacture of a smartphone in Taiwan, in 2017, in the HTC factories for the HTC U11.
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