Despite our best intentions, and being ever so careful, it’s a fact of life: our smartphones are going to get a little beat-up after months and months of regular use. We can try and delay the inevitable with cases, and we’ve seen phone manufacturers build handsets equipped with everything from Gorilla Glass to even Kevlar in an effort to save our phones from ourselves. The latest player to get involved is Nissan, announcing today an iPhone case that has an unusual property that may help keep it looking new for longer.

When you think Nissan, you think cars, so it’s only fitting that the company is adopting a technology that’s been used in the automotive industry for several years. Its Scratch Shield iPhone case features what’s known as a self-healing paint finish. Instead of protecting a new car from unsightly wear, the coating will now attempt to resist the onslaught of daily smartphone use.

While big scratches will still leave their mark, the idea is that Scratch Shield is able to undo the damage caused by much finer abrasions. Instead of building-up over time and giving the finish a worn-out “ghosted” effect, these tiny lines can now be repaired by the polymer finish itself. Its molecular structure tends to repair broken bonds over time, so in a few days a light scratch will supposedly vanish before your eyes.

Nissan’s still testing the Scratch Shield case, but if results are promising, we could see it go up for sale sometime this year. Who knows; maybe someday we’ll see this kind of treatment on smartphones themselves.

Source: Nissan

Via: phoneArena