From the makers of mission control stations, drone controllers and other rugged field equipment:
Tablets and smartphones are handheld devices, but why still? Using one hand to hold it and the other to operate the touchscreen may as well be acceptable for Facebook or Tinder, but not when you actually have to work. Using them constantly and outdoors still drains the battery way sooner than half of a working day, so you also have to juggle a dangling power bank. Going in and out of bags and pockets, giving you grief with their charge cables all the time is not the way to go.
„Handheld”: the key is in the true meaning, now it’s always in your hands, while it has grown bigger and bigger over the years... well, smartphones have long passed pocketable sizes
So both hands are full, there’s no decent way to carry other stuff or to hold on to anything
Continuous outdoor use: there’s still not enough juice in the battery
Dangling power bank or desperate search for a charger, will you reach the next charger in time?
Broken screens and torn connectors tell you the whole story. There’s a constant need for repairs, or rather a replacement, which result in an extremely high TCO (or Total Cost of Ownership). Other consequences are the many related workplace accidents, downtime and loss of revenue.
The wearable rugged smartphone and tablet started out as the core of our extremely light drone controller product, so we can't deny its real military lineage. However, such a chest mount system has a logical place in all industrial and civilian applications. The perfect weatherproof implementation of wired connectivity with full integration to your workwear, or in fact to any ordinay piece of clothing are the key aspects here. Let's give the word "wearable" its true meaning, really, it's not just a smartwatch, but the works, on you.
The attachment to your body is just a snap with the truly universal MOLLE/PALS standard, and the phone itself can go in and out of SKELLIT just as easily using just one hand. Hi-Viz vests, outdoor wear and backpack straps already make this a viable everyday ergonomic reality, but even four button holes are enough to attach it to any clothes.
There are now many types of outdoor garments available with MOLLE compatible webbing patterns, and we can already use various stock high visibility MOLLE vests especially for industrial applications. Since the traditional chest mounts were first used for admin packs, there are also a very high number of stand-alone PALS pattern flexible chest mount plates with their own light harnesses. The nice thing about these plates is that they also work as a chest attachment to any backpack, so they are instantly usable for various outdoor applications.
One of the nicest things about SKELLIT is that you don’t even need a standard MOLLE webbing pattern on your clothes, as four longer buttonholes are enough to mount a smartphone version. Garment options include:
all workwear can have four buttonholes or 2-3 lines of webbing in the chest area
overalls, dungarees
waistcoats, coats, overcoats
heavy T-shirts
zip lock vests, Hi-Viz, life vests, etc.
stand-alone light chest harnesses
backpack strap front panels
We have already created a whole line of SKELLIT mount solutions to fit various applications, garments and phone/tablet types. There is considerable know-how at many levels of this integration, but one of the most important novelty aspects is secure wired connectivity. Phones and tablets are originally wireless stand-alone devices, meant to be used as handhelds, so the few available wired connections are always in the way. These are also the first components to fail due to stress on the cable or the connector when using them plugged in.
There are numerous industrial applications where the tablet is not used in the field as a stand-alone device, and it cannot connect to a peripheral or the target system wirelessly. In fact, most specialized field instrumentation now comes with companion software that runs on tablets and smartphones. You cannot even reach the full potential of some of these instruments without the software.
This is where most other integrations, outdoor cases and modifications fail in practice. We can connect securely and safely to our mounted tablets through the IP67 grade base. Because the receptacles are right next to and in line with the hinge axis, push-pull locked and protected by both the mount and tablet body, there's no risk of accidental disconnection or connector damage.
None of the target tablets and phones need any modification. We've taken the stock versions and added the rest from the outside, notably to the docking block, so there's no loss of warranty, either. The connectivity electronics includes peripheral power management, so the external devices don't draw power from the tablet itself when not in use. We can provide wired LAN, USB, serial or other standard wired I/O connections depending on what the particular application requires.
The usual limitations apply regarding manufacturers and operating systems, Android and Windows are no problem, iOS devices are perfectly possible, but we try to stay away from them, because they were never intended for rugged industrial applications, and Apple actually makes it deliberately hard to integrate them in any decent field system.
You'll notice that we've used only premium parts, materials and machined components in all our prototypes and production samples. These include high density twill carbon fiber composites, engineering plastics like POM, hard anodised marine grade AL6082, stainless or high tensile 12.9 grade steel hardware, etc. While they are also adding a professional and upmarket look, these materials are mainly responsible for the durability and extremely low weight of these mounts at 100-200g maximum.
As the entire concept came out of our own personal field experiences, we can simply list the number of peripherals that we attach to phones and tablets in general. Of course, the datalink radio and the handheld controller are the first things that come to mind for UAV and ground robot applications, but we are talking about general industrial applications here.
SDR modules, at least a dozen different types for spectrum analyser and RF field survey purposes
any camera, DSLR or otherwise that has a decent companion software
total station for ground survey jobs
USB oscilloscope
portable thermal printer, graphs, receipts, instant hard copies of anything
long range or close quarters pen type RFID reader
old style barcode readers for close quarters selection
wired LAN connection to tap into routers and other network devices
anything that needs field settings or maintenance through a connected tablet
anything that needs a field firmware update, etc.
We’ve developed SKELLIT in three main sizes to be able to serve all applications areas. The lightest is the 6” smartphone version, which is also suitable for various consumer applications with its low profile portrait orientation. Most industrial applications will benefit from the 8” tablet format, but we also have a 10” version typically for PC based solutions.
