Concept Design Shows Smartphone Floating in Mid-Air to Charge Battery

This brand new smartphone and charging cradle concept from designers In-Oh Yoo and Sun-woong Oh, reaches the limits of awesomeness, and at the same time make us wonder why on Earth someone out there hasn’t made this a reality yet. Of course, there’s a few design elements, like with many concept designs out there, that may make someone scratch their head in confusion. But, the overall picture here is one that blends the lines between science-fiction and reality, even if the whole thing is a dream right now.

The smartphone and cradle design work together to make something magical happen. While the smartphone’s design may seem eerily familiar to other devices you’ve seen in the past, those similarities end there. At the top and bottom of the smartphone, you’ll find hollow points, which the designers say ensure that the device is being charged wirelessly. Thanks to magnets within the cradle, and the device itself, once you put the handset in the right spot, the magnets take hold, and the phone will start to hover there, between the cradle’s extended arms. As it hovers, a pre-set image will display on the phone’s screen, and the smartphone will begin charging.

But, there’s a unique twist here. The designers didn’t want the phone to be boring in any way, it seems. So, when you get a phone call, or your alarm starts to go off, the device will actually start spinning in place. As it does, thanks to an after-image that gets displayed on the phone itself, you’ll see who’s calling, that you’ve received a text message, or that you had to wake up a half hour ago to get to your meeting on time. The image is displayed in a 3D-like image, thanks to the after-image. Some might say that it’s not really practical to pick up a spinning phone, especially one that looks like it may be moving at a pretty good rate of speed, to answer a phone call or answer a text message, but it certainly looks cool.