LG introduced its new India-exclusive K7i smartphone today. It’s a fairly standard budget phone with a 5-inch HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and an unspecified quad-core processor. It’s even running Android Marshmallow with no public plans of updating to Nougat or Oreo. What a classic budget phone move. The new device does have one unique feature, though: built-in, mosquito-repelling ultrasonic sound wave technology.
This Mosquito Away feature, as LG calls it, is already included in some of the company’s air conditioners, washing machines, and TVs. It isn’t clear whether this technology actually works, although the BBC calls it a myth. Bart Knols, an entomologist who chairs the advisory board of the Dutch Malaria Foundation, told the publication that there’s “no scientific evidence whatsoever” that ultrasound repels mosquitoes. Bummer. Still, for 7,990 rupees, or $121, you can get a false sense of mosquito-repelling security and Android Marshmallow. What a deal.