South Korean firm, LG has introduced its new K7i smartphone in India embedded with technology that the company says will keep mosquitoes away. It's a fairly standard budget phone with a 5-inch HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and an unspecified quad-core processor. It runs on Android Marshmallow.
It emits ultrasonic waves from a mesh grid on the back of the phone. The waves should repel the pests and are "absolutely safe and harmless for humans," the company said. What a classic budget phone move. The new device does have one unique feature, though: built-in, mosquito-repelling ultrasonic sound wave technology.
This Mosquito Away feature, as LG calls it, is already included in some of the company's air conditioners, washing machines, and TVs. The smartphone goes for 7,990 rupees, or $121, you can get a sense of mosquito-repelling security and Android Marshmallow.
It isn't clear whether this technology actually works, although the BBC calls it a myth. LG says the K7i had a 72% success rate during clinical trials in repelling disease-spreading mosquitoes.
Bart Knols, an entomologist who chairs the advisory board of the Dutch Malaria Foundation, told the publication that there's "no scientific evidence whatsoever" that ultrasound repels mosquitoes.
