Goo.ey Skin for smartphones review: stick your iPhone where the sun shines

£15 inc VAT

Rating: 8/10

From: www.amazon.co.uk

The Goo.ey is one of the more unusual smartphone accessories we’ve seen. It isn’t a case or protector: it sticks to the back of your smartphone and allows you to fix it temporarily to just about any smooth surface such as a window, mirror or even the tiles in your kitchen.

It’s the brainchild of entrepreneur Rachel Verghis, who started Goo.ey (a British company) in July 2013. She wanted to solve the problem of having to hold your phone or tablet while making a Skype call, as well as keeping the device out of kids’ reach.

Unlike Zerochroma’s clever Vario Clear stand case which offers multiple positions and angles, the Goo.ey is reliant on the position and angle of the surface to which you’re sticking it. See also: Best cases for the iPhone 5 and 5S

There’s usually a window or mirror nearby, and it really is as simple as pressing your phone onto it to stick it in place. The first few times, I didn’t trust the material at all and held a cupped hand below my iPhone to make sure it didn’t hit the ground.

However it never fell, such is the suction offered by the Goo.ey. It’s made from polyurethane epoxy and feels slightly tacky to the touch. It won’t stick to anything that’s textured (such as standard kitchen worktop, a car dashboard or painted wall), but anything smooth and flat will instantly become stuck to the Goo.ey. We found that laminate flooring, metal, glossy LCD or TV screens were ideal surfaces.

You don’t even have to keep it particularly clean – I found it remained effective even with a thin layer of dust on it.

The Goo.ey sticks fast to your phone thanks to 3M adhesive. It’s the type that peels off without leaving a residue, so theoretically you could remove the Goo.ey from your phone, store it in the plastic packaging in which it comes and reapply it later. We found a better solution was to stick the Goo.ey onto a plastic iPhone case (the kind that costs a couple of quid from eBay) which we could then put on or take off at a moment’s notice.

If you were hoping that the Goo.ey would work in your car, the answer is that it probably won’t. It doesn't adhere to matte screens, so won't stick onto your satnav. Most windscreens are too curved, and are the wrong angle to easily see your phone’s screen anyway. Having tried sticking the Goo.ey to several curved surfaces, it works fine if they're convex (such as the outside of a shower door) but not so well on convex surfaces due to the reduced suction.

I found the Goo.ey useful for temporarily holding my phone when there was no convenient shelf. It also offers some protection against someone swiping your phone off a table in a restaurant or coffee shop, so long as the table is made from glass, metal or smooth plastic of course. Once stuck in place, it takes a good amount of force to unstick.

Currently, the Goo.ey is available for the iPhone 4 / 4S and 5, plus the Samsung Galaxy S2, 3 and 4 and Note 2. Tablet versions include the iPad mini and iPad 2/3/4. There will be other versions in the future, but note that the iPhone 5 Goo.ey won’t fit a 5S as it blocks the new dual-LED flash.

There’s a choice of colours including black, white, red, orange and aqua (blue).

Goo.ey skins: Verdict

The Goo.ey is one of those products that’s hard to rate. If you need to keep your phone out of your children’s reach while making video calls, it’s hard to fault. It works very well, but relies on a suitable surface in the right place. If you don’t have that problem, the Goo.ey probably won’t appeal.