KitKat turns chocolate bar packaging into Faraday smartphone cage

KitKat Panama has developed a chocolate bar wrapper that offers an unusual feature - a so-called "break mode". When a smartphone is placed in the wrapper, the phone is disconnected from the mobile network so that no calls can be made or messages received. This should make it easier to relax for a while without being disturbed by constant notifications.

To make this possible, the packaging was designed as a Faraday cage that completely shields the smartphone from electromagnetic waves. KitKat combines a metallic, electrically conductive layer with a polyester-copper layer and a polypropylene outer shell to make the packaging more durable. This should be sufficient to prevent connection not only to LTE and 5G networks, but also to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS. At least according to KitKat's marketing, Break Mode is 100 percent effective at disconnecting smartphones from the network.

The packaging should last for around a year with regular use and can then be recycled. Nestlé has not yet confirmed whether the clever KitKat packaging with "break mode" will also be launched outside Central America, or whether the marketing stunt will be limited to Panama. In practice, the flight mode achieves practically the same goal, and saves battery. This is because anyone who does not switch off a smartphone or activate flight mode before inserting it into the KitKat packaging must expect increased power consumption as the modem tries in vain to establish a connection to the network.