Protect your iphone, ipad, or Droid device from busy little fingers with a BubCaps, home button protector.

Use of smart phones and tablet computers for child education and entertainment has become more and more popular, with learning apps for kids among the fastest growing categories of apps on iTunes and the Android Marketplace. The problem for many parents is that kids love to hit the home button and with a few random touches they can delete calendar appointments or send accidental communication to important contacts.

Paperclip Robot created BubCaps, for smart phones, tablet computers, and iPods, to answer the demand from parents who were having trouble keeping kids in educational apps and away from the device’s other stored information. Made of latex-free plastic or aluminum, BubCaps are just rigid enough to stop the child from pressing through, but flexible enough for an adult to activate the home button with a firm press.

BubCaps actually come in three strengths for home users, regular, Ultra, and Max. The Ultra BubCaps are more difficult to push through, and are best used when you are first teaching your kids not to press the home button on your device. The regular strength BubCaps are good for slightly older kids, or for the really young children once they have more or less forgotten about the home button, you can switch back to the standard BubCaps, which are much easier to press. Finally the Max version is made of latex-free plastic for older & stronger kids that are using the iPad; often used for special education purposes. There is also an industrial version BubCap Pro that is made of aluminum. This version is used to keep users from switching out of a designated app, which is ideal for professional applications.

Although I always find it somewhat amazing that parents hand over their expensive iPhone and iPads to extremely young children who may drop them, or even worse, throw them, I see it happen almost everyday. If you are one of the parents who actually trusts your child to use your smartphone or tablet, or you just want to protect it from accidental use by your kids during an inattentive moment, a BubCap may be a cheap safety item for your mobile technology.