Shipbuilding is the one sector where an explosion proof mobile phone in South Korea follows a moving target. At Hyundai Heavy Industries' Ulsan yard the classified spaces are inside hulls and tanks that change every week as ships move through the build sequence. This page is for the yard safety officers, gas-free engineers and telecoms staff who have to equip people working in them. The IS-04Z1 is designed around intrinsic safety rather than a flameproof enclosure.
Launching Q4 2026 · certification and vendor documentation in progress
Hyundai Heavy Industries, also written HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, builds ships at Ulsan, where trade press counts ten building docks, more than any other single yard. Much of the order book is high-value work such as LNG carriers, which means membrane cargo tanks, insulation spaces, nitrogen inerting and gas trials. Unlike a refinery, nothing here is permanently classified. A cargo tank becomes a hazardous space when coating solvents are in use, when hot work is planned beside fuel or cargo systems, or when gas is introduced for testing; it becomes a safe space again when it is certified gas-free. The yard's permit and gas-testing procedures decide when, so a handset has to be usable inside the spaces where those conditions can arise rather than only at fixed plant.
Five conditions that separate a yard from a process plant, and how the IS-04Z1 is designed to meet them.
A refinery drawing stays put for years; a hull does not. A single intrinsically safe handset that carries the Zone 1 design target, II 2 G Ex ib IIC T4, avoids asking workers to judge which of several devices suits which tank on which day. Final scope is set by the certificate once issued.
Blasting, welding and coating leave grit, spatter and overspray on everything. IP68 sealing and rugged build are specified for that, and a sealed unit can be rinsed down at the end of a shift.
Decks and tank structures screen signals, so staff move between quay and hold constantly. A handset that drops onto the yard network, and records a position where GNSS is available, helps a supervisor see which block someone is working in.
A very large workforce passes through a yard of this kind, much of it subcontractor staff. Android Enterprise enrolment and MDM allow device groups per vessel or trade, camera policy set centrally, and a clean wipe when a crew rolls off.
Defect photographs speed up punch lists, while naval and commercial-sensitive work needs control over what is captured. The 50 MP camera is useful only if the console can govern it, which is why the camera policy is set by the owner, not the user.
A ship moves from steel cutting to block assembly, grand assembly in the dock, floating out, quay outfitting and trials. Hazardous-area work clusters in the later stages, when tanks are coated, systems are connected and gas is introduced, but hot-work permits and confined-space entry run throughout. Each vessel is effectively its own site with its own schedule, so supervisors juggle several permit boards at once. For handsets this means rapid onboarding for crews who change hull every few weeks, plus a device that survives being carried down ladders and through manholes.
A worker entering a coated tank carries a handset that can call the standby person at the manhole, record the entry and take a before-and-after photograph of the work.
A supervisor walks a quay-side vessel with the owner's inspector, photographing defects with a position tag and closing items from the same device.
Test engineers bringing a gas system into service log readings and pass status to the control room without leaving the area.
Yard safety rules are the shipyard's own and are not published, so we make no claim about a particular registration scheme. Vessels in service fall under classification society and flag-state rules; during build the yard governs. Before any evaluation, ask the operator's procurement and HSE teams for its requirements in writing.
No. The device is pre-launch, certification is in progress ahead of the Q4 2026 launch, and there is no evaluation, listing or order at the yard.
Not in practice. Refineries have fixed classification drawings, whereas a yard controls hazardous conditions through permits and gas testing tied to each vessel's stage. The device rating is the same concept, but the yard's own procedures decide where it may be used.
Environmental testing covers general cold-exposure durability, but the certificate will state its exact operating range once issued. The yard's HSE team should confirm applicability to specific commissioning procedures.
No. They are separate operating companies in the same group, with different hazards and separate procurement, so approval at one does not carry to the other.
Tell us the site, the zone and gas group, and roughly how many handsets. The SAMS team replies by email with the datasheet and the certification schedule for South Korea. The IS-04Z1 is pre-launch and certification is in progress, so there is no list price yet; indicative pricing is issued in writing against a stated quantity and site.
Tell us the zone, gas group and operator. We will send the datasheet and the certification schedule for your market.
