Nearly everyone has an Android phone or iPhone in their pocket—if a company can get a sizable portion of those people to buy its accessory, that’s a lot of potential profit. But just because a product exists, that doesn’t mean you should buy it.
The popularity of smartphones has created a huge demand for accessories to go with them. However, many of these products are not worth your money—some are complete cash-grab scams. Here are the ones you should avoid.
Camera lens protectors
The lens is hard enough already
A lot of people choose a specific phone because of its cameras. Naturally, people want to protect them, but phone cases rarely protect the camera lenses, too. That’s the hole that lens protectors are trying to fill.
Camera lens protectors are essentially just glass or plastic caps that fit snugly around the lenses on the back of a phone. The idea is to protect the lens from scratches, but that’s rarely a real concern these days. Apple, for example, uses sapphire glass in iPhone cameras. It’s a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale—diamond is the hardest at 10.
The reality is any camera lens protector—even glass ones—will be made of far less quality material than the real lens. All you’re doing is slapping on a softer, sacrificial cover that will get covered in scratches and make your photos look worse.
Radiation blocking stickers
Don’t get scammed
One of the more recent concerns about smartphones is the health effects of 5G and electromagnetic fields (EMFs). It’s no surprise that companies are more than happy to feed into these fears with products to keep you “safe.”
Radiation block stickers claim to absorb dangerous radiation, preventing it from getting to your body. There are several major “plot holes” in the concept of these stickers. Let’s pretend the stickers do genuinely absorb radiation—where is it going? More importantly, if they work as advertised, how would the phone still connect to Wi-Fi and cellular data?
If the technology in radiation-blocking stickers were real, it would be used for much more than cheap phone accessories. Don’t fall for the scam.
Super cheap generic charging cables
Danger to your device and self
New phones always come with a charging cable, but just one is not enough for most people. The temptation to buy just any ol’ cheap “compatible” cable is tempting—especially with the rise of USB-C. Unfortunately, this could do real damage to your device and yourself.
Cheap charging cables often cut costs with super-thin insulation, the bare minimum amount of copper conductor, and weak transitions between the cable and connector. All of this adds up to inconsistent voltage that can harm your device’s battery health in the best case and start fires in the worst case.
Buy charging cables from trusted manufacturers, and check your phone’s charging specifications to make sure it matches the cable. You’ll pay a little more, but you won’t have to worry about burning down the house.
Bluetooth trackers without Apple Find My or Google Find Hub
Get a tracker that can actually find stuff
Tile launched its first Bluetooth tracker back in 2013, and it became quite popular. Then Apple released the AirTag in 202. It leveraged Apple’s “Find My” ecosystem to help you find stuff—Google has a similar network for Android devices. For better or worse, it’s not worth buying a tracker that doesn’t use these networks.
A product that relies on other people buying in is only as powerful as the size of the user base. That’s what made AirTags such an immediate success. Millions of people already had iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks. Suddenly, they were being used as a massive network of points to detect AirTags. As popular as Tile was—and still somewhat is—it’s hard to compete with that.
Google’s Find Hub network is far less useful than Apple’s, but it still has the advantage of a built-in user base of millions of Android phones. Buying a tracker that doesn’t support Find My or Find Hub would be a waste of time.
Screen protectors
Hot take incoming
Alright, I’m going to end this list with a bit of a hot take: you don’t need a screen protector.
Back in the late 2000s, when smartphones exploded, the materials they were made with simply weren’t as good as they are nowadays. The iPhone that Steve Jobs used on stage in 2007 literally had a plastic display. He infamously called Corning the next day and asked them to make a new glass for the phone, and that became Gorilla Glass.
Gorilla Glass quickly became the overwhelming choice for smartphone displays—it still is today. The last few generations of Gorilla Glass offer very impressive scratch resistance. Gorilla Armor, for example, is rated at an 8/10 on the Mohs hardness scale. Other options on the market include Ceramic Shield (iPhone) and Dragontail (OnePlus, Pixel A series).
Your smartphone display likely is hard enough to resist most scratches on it’s own, and a screen protector obviously isn’t preventing cracks. So, do yourself a favor and ditch the cheap-feeling film.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
