Student’s invention outsmarts smartphones while at sea

Being in trouble at sea without a phone signal might no longer be an issue thanks to an Irish-designed case that allows a phone to become a VHF radio.

Seán Toomey came up with the idea for his waterproof VHF Casemate last year as a thesis project for his product design degree at Dublin Institute of Technology. He is now hoping a partner firm will be found to put it into production.

“More people are now relying on phones in case they have an emergency, but I spoke to a few people at the RNLI in Dún Laoghaire. They said it was a problem in some cases they responded to, where people had tried unsuccessfully to raise the alarm using mobile phones,” the 23-year-old Dubliner said.