I get it for watches, but I've never understood the mass-market need for a waterproof phone, outside of a few niche hobbies. Are people showering and swimming with their phones or something? Or dropping them in their toilets? The wettest my phone has ever been in 8 years is in my pocket while it's raining.

People in humid climates and cold climates were regularly having their phones get denied warranty service because the water ingress stickers turned red due to condensation, without ever exposing their phone to water immersion. This was understandably upsetting for a lot of people who just wanted their phone to be fixed under warranty.

Thus, companies put in a big effort to seal their phones against dust and water, which ought to have dramatically reduced these service issues and led to a better customer experience overall!

Life happens, people want the assurance that their phone isn’t necessarily e-garbage after an accidental dunk.

It is not that long ago that smartphones would die from moisture exposure if you left them in the bathroom while taking a shower. I had a girlfriend around 2001 who spent all her savings on a shiny new Nokia 8250, got drunk and barfed on her jacket. The phone was in the pocket, and the moisture from the wet jacket completely killed it, she cried about it for weeks. I also remember my mother dropping her iPhone 6 in the harbor while getting off a boat, it got picked up but was dead. Last year I was out hiking in the rain, and my aging (5+ years old) iPhone 11 got water inside it and started dying soon after (I'd been sailing/swimming with the phone and had exposed it to salt water, apparently that will wear down the seals if you do it enough.)

In other words, I absolutely see the need for waterproof phones, even for ordinary people doing ordinary things, and am never going to buy one that isn't.

I like to wash my phone under the tap, not getting paranoid of having it in a table close to the pool while drinking a few beers with my wife and friends, it is a really nice to have feature if you live in a warmer climate.

> Or dropping them in their toilets?

That.

It’s also nice to be able to wash them under the tap

I like to wash my phones every now and then. Even submerging them in water.

kayaks or hiking or fishing is like 40%% of entire population sole hobby in europe

Kayaking, fishing, river floating, surfing, diving, snorkeling, etc. "No one I know takes their phone snorkeling" <- that's because they're not presently waterproof, but I imagine a lot of people would like to take a high quality camera under water.

I'd rather have an 3.5mm audio jack

Swimming. Lakes generally don't come with a securely closed box, and even if I come with company, they usually want to swim at the same time.

Of course I don't have to actually _use_ the phone while swimming, so it goes into a waterproof pouch - but having a 2nd layer of defense is nice.

> Are people showering and swimming with their phones or something?

Believe it or not, yes!

Tens of millions of people have outdoor hobbies that puts them in direct or incidental contact with water. Hundreds of millions live in places where rain happens. Billions live in situations where a spill of drinking water (or water based liquids) are a real risk for thier phones.

I don't want to take extra care and caution just to have a life and a fone. Theoretically this thing makes my life easier and I want it to act like it damnit.

What, you stop refreshing HN while you're showing?

I think it's mostly marketing. When all phones are identical glass rectangles, the only meaningful way to distinguish your product is by being the biggest, thinnest, highest IP-rating.

Most of these metrics are entirely orthogonal to what any real person wants from a phone, but that's an irrelevant detail to marketing types

Yes, people are so addicted to scrolling their idiotic looping videos that they take their phones in public pools. Saw it myself.