Smartphone case

[ysobel]

So, er, it occurs to me that this might be another sort of "flist knows all yays" needs. So:

I have a smartphone (iPhone, I think it's either 2 or 3) and am looking for a case for it since my current case is sort of broken and the phone is being held in with hair ties lolz. Now, iPhone cases are everywhere, obviously, but:

For mobility and safety reasons I need to have my phone basically tethered to me. Which means the case needs to have some sort of clip or ring or something, not just a smooth surface.

My current (broken) case was the only one I could find with a belt clip, and I have a large metal ring in the belt clip and a lanyard + carabiner setup threaded through a loop on my belt and attached to said ring. When I am not using the phone, it dangles at my side. When I need to use it, I pull it up by the lanyard until it is where I can reach it.

But there were two problems. One, I was a little uncertain at first that the phone might decide to unclip itself from the metal ring while it was dangling. The case was designed to sit neatly on a belt, except that I wasn't using it on a belt. And two, the case was designed to have the phone facing inward and then removed for use. I never want to have the phone loose, so I had it facing outward, which means that the camera was unusable. (I could get around that by taking the phone out of the case, but then there was a risk of dropping it and also the thing I wanted to photograph was usually gone by that point.)

So generally it was not an ideal situation, but literally every case I can find is either a) is just a protective skin with no mechanism for attaching to anything, or b) is a clunky ugly belt holster of the face-inwards-and-take-out-for-use sort. All I want is, like, something with a solid loop attached to the top or back (or wherever) that I can clip a lanyard to.

Halp?

Comments

[domtheknight]

Heyyyy I don't have an iPhone BUT would it be possible to knit or crochet something (maybe in conjunction with other pieces - such as a carabiner type clip for attaching to clothes/belt?) that would do the job? I would think it's possible to get yarn that's sturdy enough and/or make it sturdy through working, and then you could get exactly the size you'd need, and length on chain, etc.

I have friends with iPhones, maybe one of them will have an idea.

[domtheknight]

Oh! What about a kind of waterproof bag thing for phones that has a handle of some sort? (Link to amazon.) Looks like it's possible to use the screen through the bag material and the handle/loop bit could probably be attached to things.

The reviews are mixed, but maybe other companies make similar things.

[azurelunatic]

I have successfully hacked some (Android and iPod) cases without built-in tethers by taking a cellphone charm strap of the sort one gets at Daiso or equivalent and looping it around a part of the case that has a hole but doesn't need to be 100% tightest ever fit. Like the hole for the headphone jack. But I don't know enough about iPhone anatomy.

Some aftermarket cellphone case-and-random places have adhesive loop-attacher things. There's also the silicone putty that might be able to be used to modify something.

[highlander_ii]

Have you tried the sports armband style ones? The camera might still be 'hidden', but the phone would slide in facing the correct way and you should be able to loop something through the armband part?