People always say that your hands are the most constantly germ ridden parts of your body because you use them to touch everything. As much as it's important to wash your hands when they get dirty, the folks over at PhoneSoap believe it's just as important to wash your phone, especially considering the amount of time you spend all day holding it.
PhoneSoap's solution is a device that charges phones overnight and sanitizes them at the same time with a UV-C light. The UV-C light is electromagnetic radiation that's used in hospitals and clean rooms worldwide. PhoneSoap has these UV-C lights on both sides of the box to clean the top and bottom of the phone. It only takes about 3-5 minutes to kill 99.9% bacteria that have been living on your phone and growing due to the heat your hands transfer to the phone, or from when it is stored in warm places like a purse or pocket.
You can choose to only sanitize your phone, to only charge your phone, or do both. PhoneSoap comes with a Miro USB Cord and Apple 30-pin USB cord so that you can charge your phone with PhoneSoap while sanitizing it or not — just put your phone in the box if you want to sanitize it and outside if you don't. LED lights will indicate that the UV-C lights are on and doing their cleaning. You can open the box during this process and the lights will automatically shut off.
The pre-order for PhoneSoap is now over on Kickstarter, but if you're interested you can leave your email on their website and they will notify you once pre-orders are open again.
Does PhoneSoap raise enough concerns, and is it designed simply enough that you would consider switching over from your regular charger?
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
White Enamel Flatwa...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
My phone is a hard, dry surface. It spends most of it's time in my pocket, in my purse, or on a table plugged into a wall socket.
I clean the case with a very slightly damp paper towel, then wipe it completely dry. It doesn't need to be sterilized. It's not a surface on which life can survive for extended periods of time.
So ridiculous. Why would I want yet another device (with more cords to manage, no less) when 60 seconds with a cotton pad and some rubbing alcohol kills the germs AND gets rid of the grime (which UV doesn't do)? I'm always baffled by people who spend good money on crap like this.
Or you could just hold it up to that UV shopping cart cleaning thingy at the grocery store.
Or how about everyone just knock it off with the germaphobia? Germs make you stronger. Purell is giving your kids asthma. Or something. But seriously, wash your hands with soap and water and live your lives.
Can I get a full-body-sized version of this device so that I can decontaminate myself? Oh wait, it only kills bacteria... never mind. I want to kill viruses too!
Not useful. Pass.
I clean all handheld devices with saniwipes. The UV thing is overkill, and it doesn't do away with the oil and gunk that builds up on things.
Terry in Silver Spring, you are incorrect. Your cell phone is a petri dish of bacteria, feeding on oils and skin cells from your face and hands and any bit of food you may have gotten on there by handling.
Rural and Ruefull,
I'm a biologist. We swabbed common objects, including phones, and ran cultures in a lab I used to teach. My phone is not a "petri dish of bacteria". I do clean the face oil off of it regularly and wipe it down. Amazingly enough, I don't tend to get food on mine unless it rings when I'm cooking.
Dry, hard surfaces aren't good places for bacteria to survive.
Unless you are The Boy in the Bubble or something, this is overkill of the highest order.
The title got it right: "hang up"...