Aside from the 11 Concept, OnePlus is also showing off a standalone phone cooler concept at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC), designed to keep your device cool during extended periods of gaming. The imaginatively-named 45W Liquid Cooler is a thermoelectric cooler, like the clip-on kind many gaming-oriented smartphone makers sell, using the Peltier effect to reduce temperatures.
The difference here is that the cooler part isn’t actually attached to the clip-on piece; instead, it lives in a large box that’s separate, connected to a power supply. A pipe connects the box to the attachment clip, supplying icy-cold liquid and drawing heat away from the phone. This means you’re basically tethered to a power outlet if you want to use the cooler.
OnePlus says it went with this arrangement because it makes the clip-on piece smaller, and it also doesn’t blow hot air onto the user’s hands. It’s claiming a 20°C reduction in temperature, which was certainly borne out in the real world—our OnePlus 11 became ice cold within a minute of being clipped on. You can adjust the cooling effect in four steps using a button on top of the cooler.
As the cooler is a standalone device and isn’t connected to the phone’s charging port, it can be used with any phone—not just a OnePlus device. Like the OnePlus 11 Concept, there are currently no plans to produce the 45W Liquid Cooler.
