Oaxis InkCase i7 helps you save iPhone battery with a second, E Ink display

By Christian de Looper Published November 21, 2016

One of the iPhone’s main issues is battery life — and one of the biggest consumers of that battery life is the display. While the iPhone’s display looks pretty nice, it just doesn’t compare in battery use to something like an E Ink display. That’s why Oaxis wants to stick an E Ink display on the iPhone. No, not as a replacement to your phone’s existing display, but rather as an addition on the back of the phone.

Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a company attempt to integrate an E Ink screen into a standard phone design — the Yotaphone, for example, comes to mind. The new Oaxis iPhone 7 case, however, takes a different approach — by simply integrating a screen into the case itself.

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The case is called the InkCase i7, and it basically has its own battery, which is charged through a magnetic charger, and connects to your phone through Bluetooth. So how is that all supposed to cut down on your iPhone’s battery? Well, but using the E Ink display on the back of your phone rather than the iPhone 7 display, you’ll use the screen for a lot less time. That case battery however, can’t be used by your phone as an external battery — because of the fact that the phone and case connect through Bluetooth rather than any physical connection.

The InkCase i7 is actually not the first case from Oaxis — it’s the successor to the InkCase i6 for the iPhone 6, and it’s almost identical, however it offers a larger hole for the iPhone 7’s larger camera. Apart from that it has the same 4.3-inch display, notifications display, and weirdly huge logo. Unfortunately, the case isn’t yet available for the iPhone 7 Plus.

Christian de Looper

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

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