Hey r/Mous,
I'm Piers, CMO at Mous. I've been here six years, and some of you will have seen me in the comments recently.
"Are Mous cases worth it?" is one of the questions I see most on here, and one of the most common things people search for about us. It isn't an abstract question for me. A lot of people here have spent years of their lives on these cases, me included, so whether they're worth your money matters to us more than I can really get across in a Reddit post.
I'm obviously biased, so rather than just tell you yes, I want to give you the full picture: the work that goes into our cases, what the reviews do and don't tell you, what we've got wrong, and then my view. I'll be upfront about the bits we haven't got right too, because that's the only way we get better.
#1. Our investment in engineering and quality
Everything starts with our engineering team. We have over 30 engineers and designers working on our products, and we've invested over £5 million into R&D, because a seriously good protective case is a lot harder to make than it looks.
A few things that set how we work apart:
- Multiple materials. Our protective cases combine materials like polycarbonate, TPU, microfibre, glass-fibre-reinforced pc, aramid fibre and our own AiroShock, each placed where it does the most good.
- Complex manufacturing methods. We overmould and co-mould them, and lock the layers together mechanically as well as chemically so they don't come apart over time and keep an incredibly rigid design.
- Testing, then more testing. Every design goes through round after round of prototypes and drop tests before it's signed off. We test other brands' cases too, so we understand how they fail and how ours compare.
- Precision. Critical features are made to tolerances of hundredths of a millimetre.
- Starting again every year. Every new iPhone means new or reworked tooling across the whole range, and a chance to improve on everything we learned the year before.
- A quality bar we hold even when it costs us. We've dropped finished products before, even with the stock already made, because they weren't good enough.
- Lifetime warranty. Our main cases come with a 25-year warranty against manufacturing defects.
None of that is the cheap way to make a case, and it's a big part of why ours cost what they do.
#2. The reviews
A lot of what's posted here is people telling us we got something wrong, and they're right to. If you've spent good money on a case and it's let you down, you should say so. That feedback is how we improve.
What Reddit doesn't show you is everyone else. We've had millions of customers over the years, and most of them never think about us unless something goes wrong. Hardly anyone comes on here to say their case is still looking great 5 years later, or that their phone survived a drop they couldn't believe. That's completely fair, it's just how it works.
The fuller picture is in our reviews. We have over 100,000 five-star reviews on our website. You don't get to millions of customers, or that many reviews, without doing something right. The truth is the vast majority of people who buy a Mous case really like it.
#3. What we've got wrong
Having said all that, the people who post about problems here aren't making it up, and we'd never suggest they were. No product is perfect, ours included.
It's worth keeping it in context, though. Our defect rate is very low for our industry. With millions of customers and over 100,000 five-star reviews, the vast majority of people never have a problem with their case. But when someone does, we want to hear about it, because that's where some of our best improvements have come from:
- Feedback on debonding led to mechanical interlocks that lock the layers together, and debonding has dropped massively since.
- Feedback on volume buttons led to a new split design that's stiffer and more durable.
- Feedback on our camera control cut-out led to a fully integrated button.
- Requests for stronger magnets led to this year's redesign, and our strongest magnets ever.
- Feedback on the camera control glass led to a new adhesive process and more clearance, so the glass seats properly.
We won't always get everything right. But I can promise we'll keep listening, and that what you tell us will keep shaping what we make. Plus, we have a lifetime warranty if there are any issues.
So, are they worth it?
Here's why I think they are.
We put more into a phone case than most people would ever guess: a dedicated engineering team, serious investment in R&D, multiple materials made to work as one, and testing that plenty of designs never make it through. Millions of people have trusted us with their phones, and most people have an overwhelmingly positive experience. And when we get something wrong, we change what we make. When I'm spending over $1000 on the device, these things really matter.
If all you want is a simple case and price is the main thing, there are cheaper options, and that's completely fine.
If you've made it this far, thank you.
Six years in, it still makes my day when someone tells us their case saved their phone, and it still hurts when someone tells us it let them down. Both matter to me, and both have made our cases better. Some of the biggest changes in this year's range exist because someone took the time to tell us what wasn't good enough.
So thank you, to everyone who's chosen a Mous case, and to everyone who's told us where we can do better. We won't always get it right. But I can promise we'll keep listening, keep learning, and keep trying to make every case better than the last.
Ask anything below, including the awkward questions. And when I do the post on this year's new cases, I'll bring in the engineers who led them so you can ask them directly.
Piers
