How deep can the iPhone X and XS really go? We decided to put the Hitcase Pro to test.

The Hypothesis

We already know that the iPhone X and XS aren’t waterproof. However, they have been specified as water resistant. This means that you can actually take them for a swim! When Apple launched these phones, they claimed that the iPhone XS could survive for about 30 minutes if it were to be submerged into 6 feet (2 meters) of water. This is their definition of creating a phone that meets the IP68 standards.

Even though these are the official ratings of the developer, we wanted to test how deep the phone could really go with a waterproof iPhone X case.

Initial Testing

Before we went forward with the actual somersault, we had let both our iPhones with their Hitcase PROs ease into some earlier tests. Both the phones had managed to survive the dip into a chlorinated pool of water for the industry average of 30 minutes.

Yes, we thought that was boring too, so we tried glazing both the phones with wine and some hot tea. To clean them off, we also took them for a short and shallow, salt-water swim, in the San Francisco Bay. In either the case, the phones weren’t fazed and our fears started to give way to our creativity.

Now it was time to really raise the stakes!

Acme Underwater Drone

Now that both the phones had survived our friendly Californian Monterey Bay, we decided to really test the limits of the waterproof iPhone X case. We made some phone calls and got our hands on a survivor of the Robot Wars drone and made a few tweaks here and there so it could latch 2 iPhones to what previously used to be claws.

This underwater drone was designed by our dear friend in a manner that it could swim to a depth of about 100 meters. Naturally, we didn’t plan on going that deep but we were really determined to test the Hitcase PRO!

Now that Apple doesn’t cover water damages under its warranty, our scientific experiment had only one dependent variable.

The First Dive: Six Meters

For our first test, we latched the 2 phones onto the drone and were ready to start the timers and test the industry limit. Once the gizmo had bobbed around in the water for about 10 minutes we let it splash quite a lot of salt water onto the waterproofed phones. After this, we removed them from the water and tested them for functionality. Both the phones were working perfectly.

In the next attempt, we let the drone dive to a depth of 6 meters and let it swim around the bay for about 30 minutes. Apart from being able to capture some really stunning underwater wildlife, with the Hitcase PRO’s 3x TrueLUX® Lenses, nothing out of the ordinary happened to the phones.

Now it was time to dry them off and take them way past the industry limits.