These smartphones on soldiers' chests are becoming an important tool in the US Army's plans for a high-tech fight
The US Army is increasingly integrating ruggedized, commercial smartphones into combat operations to improve battlefield awareness through real-time mapping and communication apps. While useful, soldiers report challenges with connectivity and the need for physical backups.
Why it matters
The shift toward commercial off-the-shelf technology represents a major digital transformation in military strategy, prioritizing speed and data accessibility in high-tech warfare.
The End User Devices are attached to soldiers' chests and run on batteries carried on their backs. US Army photo by Sgt. Nathan Arellano Tlaczani US Army soldiers are using smartphones mounted on their chests for mapping and communicating. Soldiers found the End User Devices useful but ran into connection issues and said they still need physical backups. Army leaders used a recent exercise to assess how many soldiers should have the devices. The soldiers stood at the edge of a building, readying to push deeper into the city for the next phase of the fight. Some checked their ammunition, while others mapped out their moves on the smartphones on their chests. The US Army refers to the systems Business Insider saw used in this urban training scenario as End User Devices, Samsung phones that have been stripped, ruggedized, and reprogrammed for soldiers.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in