CES 2014: iPhone Case With Built-In Stun Gun Revealed

The sheer range of consumer accessories at this year’s CES took another unique turn with Yellow Jacket’s unveiling of the next generation of its eponymous iPhone case – following up the earlier launch of a thermal-imaging iPhone case from FLIR.

In response to the news that 3.1 million violent crimes are committed in the United States every year, combined with the fact that most smartphone users are never more than a few feet away from their devices, the company has released what it calls the world’s first Stun Gun attachment for your iPhone.

The 400g case houses a 650 kikloVolt stun gun designed for personal protection, powered by its own battery which can provide up to 20 additional hours of charge to the phone if it isn’t used to zap someone.  Currently available for the iPhone 4 and 4S, Yellow Jacket is demonstrating its iPhone 5/5S case at CES this week, which will be ready for purchase in February, available in your choice of red, blue, green and grey. Android users will have to wait a little longer, however, as cases for the Samsung Galaxy S4 and other devices are planned for release in Summer 2014.

Safety dance

To avoid the risk of accidental discharge when pulling that amount of power out of your pocket in an emergency, the Yellow Jacket features several safety features to avoid user error and prevent unwanted discharge.

The case has a switch which must be engaged before the trigger can be activated, as well as a flip-down  safety cap which prevents electrode-to-skin contact. This sounds simple enough, but we can’t help wondering if this wouldn’t take up crucial time during an attack.  Yellow Jacket claims it is possible to fire the gun in only one second, despite the safety features.

The case also does the more everyday job of protecting the phone from bumps and knocks, meaning that an accidental drop onto a hard surface won’t result in another kind of shock.

Inventor and co-founder Seth Froom, a former US Army MP, devised the concept for Yellow Jacket after an armed robbery he experienced in 2011, and launched the first edition of the product last year following a successful campaign on the crowd-funding platform Indiegogo.

Yellow Jacket has now detailed international sales plans, but TechWeek readers should be advised that the product would be illegal in the UK.