Long gone are the days where you could manage to walk out of the cell phone store with nothing but a new phone, a car charger, and maybe a Bluetooth headset if you were feeling particularly generous with your money. Now-a-days you need a screen protector, a case, an extended battery, a docking station, and a whole slew of other things if you want to get the full user experience out of your phone. If you’re going to end up going accessory crazy anyway, why not make it interesting and see what unique accessories you can find for your phone?

I’ve come across a lot of unique accessories in my day. While a lot of them may have not been tailored for my phone specifically, it’s still pretty cool to see the accessories some people come up with to work with our phones. I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite accessories to share with you.

1. Personal Speaker Pillow

I’m the type of person that likes to fall asleep listening to music. However, if you’ve ever tried sleeping with headphones on you can really never get into a comfortable sleeping position if you’re a side-sleeper; the ear buds either jam into your ears or the headphones are too big to rest your head on the pillow. With the speaker pillow, you simply plug your phone in and you can hear the music play softly through the pillow itself once you rest your head. Or, you know, you could just turn on a stereo. But that’s been done before. This is new and exciting.

2. iRetrophone for iPhone

Isn’t it nice to see that we can still trace back to the roots of our phone tree and incorporate a more traditional look to our sleek cell phones? The iRetrophone serves as a real working phone that has the appearance of an old rotary dial telephone (except where the dial would normally be is where the iPhone rests). This accessory is good for two things: eye candy and slamming the receiver on somebody that just rustled your jimmies from the other end.

3. Bi-Bop case

Speaking of tracing back to our roots, this Bi-Bop case for the iPhone is the perfect humorous accessory that’s sure to get you noticed on the street; Bi-Bop on the outside, full functionality of a smartphone on the inside. This accessory is very nostalgic for those who remember the hit TV show “Saved by the Bell”. I don’t care who you are, it’s never too late to try and be as cool as Zack Morris.

4. popSLATE case for iPhone 5

While this is a relatively new accessory, it’s one of my favorites and I hope the idea will catch on so other smartphones will have an option to use this accessory in the future. The popSLATE case for the iPhone 5 serves a dual-purpose – as a case and as a four inch e-ink display on the back. You can read books, browse photos, and use it for notifications. I like it because although it has the same concept as the recently announced YotaPhone, you have the option to remove the e-ink display case whereas the e-ink display on the back of the YotaPhone is permanent.

These are just a few of the intriguing accessories I’ve come across, so now comes the point where I ask you: what are some of the most interesting accessories you’ve seen? Did you like the idea so much that you purchased the accessory? Let me know in the comments!