The mobile airbag may be coming to save your phone

People drop and break their smartphones all the time, but a German engineering student named Philip Frenzel may have the solution to save everyone some time, money, and unneeded stress. Spotted by DesignBoom, Frenzel has created the mobile airbag, a case that senses when your phone is in free fall and releases metal prongs to protect it from damage.

A student at Aalen University in Germany, Frenzel won an award from the German Mechatronics Society with the mobile airbag, and expects to launch the device on Kickstarter next month along with Peter Mayer, another student at the university, according to the German publication Preview Online.

If this product — or a similar one like it, with an improved design — actually makes it to market, there’s no doubt it could help save people hundreds of dollars they would otherwise end up spending on phone repairs or new devices. The era of cracked screens may be coming to an end sooner than we think.