Kyocera introduces new “rafre’ washable smartphone

Japan-based Kyocera has introduced a new ''rafre'' washable smartphone that is resistant to hot water and has a touchscreen that could be used even when the user's hands were wet or when wearing gloves.

The product would be offered from March 2017 in Japan and would be available in three colours - pale pink, clear white and light blue.

''The smartphone is a successor to the orignal DIGNO rafre, which launched in December 2015 as the world's first hand-soap-washable smartphone. In addition to resistance against foaming hand soap, the second-generation model possesses resistance to foaming body soap,'' the company said in a post yesterday.

Also the new handset comes with a special cooking app which allows users to scroll through recipes, set timers and answer calls through hand gestures without touching the  display.

The device comes with phase detection auto-focus and auto HDR, and sports a 13MP rear camera, 2GB of RAM, 16GB internal memory, and a 3,000mAh battery. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat operating system.

As the phone does not include a traditional speaker, it does not have an earpiece speaker hole, it is more resistant to liquids, dirt and dust. The phone uses the "smart sonic receiver" technology which transmits sound via vibrations, somewhat similar to Xiaomi's forward-looking Mi Mix.