I did a post back on July 15 about a few rugged cell phones that I thought might come in handy for those of you who find the current crop of cell phones to be just a bit lacking in the toughness department.

Not everybody feels this way as evidenced by this quote from the article that inspired that original post. A commenter wrote:

I had a Nokia 6010 that lasted for a long time while I worked construction. I dropped it off the second story on to a slab. It broke the plastic case, that’s it. I dropped it into fresh concrete. I just wiped it off on my pants, it worked just fine. It fell out of my shirt pocket onto a conveyor belt of gravel. It rode to the top of the belt and fell 30 ft on to a gravel pile and got pummeled by gravel the whole time. Works just fine.

And if I were that commenter I’d probably stick with that 6010 too, although I can’t imagine how ugly it must be by now.

But anyway, the reason this topic has come up again is because when I do these blog posts about specific kinds of products I have to stop writing at some point and consider them finished. As a result, unless the list of products is extremely short, there are going to be some I don’t include. In this case the list was pretty short. There aren’t a lot of rugged cell phones out there yet but I did manage to miss one.

It’s called Airo, and it comes to us from a small company in Atlanta. I use the word small only because that’s how Dwayne Waxer, senior vice president of global strategy for Airo Wireless, referred to the company in an email he sent introducing me to the company’s line of products.

Dwayne also sent over some specs on the Airo A25 and as you might guess this phone certainly qualifies as rugged. It meets the MILSPEC 810-F standards that seem to be the benchmark for rugged these days. There is also a reference to the IP67 standard. In its “Rugged Devices and Measurement of Ruggedness” paper, Airo makes a point of discussing the ways the MILSPEC 810-F standard allows for the “tailoring” of the tests that measure whether or not a product lives up to the standard. Basically, Airo claims suppliers can customize their test methods to fit the requirements of the end user. Here is how the company explains this:

As an example, “MIL-STD 810F Method 516.5 Shock” requires that items weighing 100 pounds or less survive a total of 26 drops on each face, edge and corner. The 26 drops can be divided among as many as five samples of the same test item, which probably means “use the first until it fails, then start with the second, until it passes,” although the language leaves it open to interpretation. Generally a handset must be dropped from 48 inches onto plywood covered concrete. It also appears that the test can be conducted with the equipment in the off position.

As a result of the malleable nature of the testing procedure, the ability of commercial entities to decide what constitutes a passing result, and the ability to test for non-critical conditions and be “certified,” the MIL-STD-810-F is the least useful measure of ruggedness for a handheld electronic device and most demanding of critical analysis.

According to Airo, since the A25 phone adheres to the IP67 standards for Ingress Protection, as spelled out by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and verified by a third party, it is truly walking the rugged walk. IP67 means the unit is “totally protected against dust” and is “protected against the effect of immersion between 15cm (6in) and 1m (40in).”

So I guess everyone now wants to know just what the features are. Well, to name just a few, it has programmable hot keys so you can get to repetitive functions quickly and it runs the Windows Mobile operating system. There is also integrated GPS, Bluetooth, and a mini SD card reader. The phone supports four bands so it can operate the world over and it is ready to handle data through the general packet radio system (GPRS) and the Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) networks. The manufacturer’s suggested price on the A25 is $649. Set to release in Q4 of this year is the Airo A25is. This is probably overkill for most in the construction business unless you work on refineries or other similar kinds of projects. It is recommended for use in industrial and hazardous environments.

There is of course much more to this product and the company behind it, and you can get all of that at the Web site.

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