It falls in the toilet. Your clumsy partner hit a glass of water on it. You forgot it was in your pocket when you jumped in the pool. These are just a few of the hundreds of ways your phone can come into life-threatening contact with liquid.
Fortunately, waterproofing has mostly become standard on modern phones. New iPhones, Samsung Galaxy devices and Google’s latest Pixel phones all have some degree of water resistance or waterproofing. How well a telephone resists water is measured on an IP scale (or Ingress Protection). Congratulations, if your phone has a high number, such as IP67 or IP68 protection, it will probably be fine! But if it has a lower rating, or not at all, you need to prepare for the worst time before you start chewing in the hot tub with your trusted Sidekick.
Once your phone decides to dive, you will probably start to frantically tap on all the buttons, blow on them or blow with a hair dryer to get rid of all the water quickly. . Although these are all well-intentioned actions, guess what? Completely the wrong approach. Here’s the right way to save your water damaged smartphone.
First, pick it up as quickly as possible. If your phone is still down in the jacuzzi or in the toilet, remove it as soon as possible. The longer it is in the liquid, the greater the chance of damage.
Once the appliance is no longer under water, switch it off immediately. Do not try to press any of the other buttons or load any programs, but disable them. Remove the case if you have one. If you have a phone with a removable battery, push out the battery. You want to turn off the power of the device as quickly as possible to avoid the possibility of a short circuit. Most of today’s smartphones do not have removable batteries, but some older models, or newer models built for repairability like the Nokia 1.3, let the battery stick out.
Do not blow dry your wet phone or put it in the oven! Heat can damage the fine electronics inside. All you have to do is quickly wipe the bare, cushion-free phone with a clean towel, making sure that no water accidentally runs into the charging port, SIM or MicroSD slot or headphone jack (if you have another phone). ). If traces of water are trapped in cracks or notches, try carefully and conservatively to blow out compressed air. If you do not have a can of air, you can use it with your mouth to blow it out gently. Just be careful not to blow the water further into the phone, or add your own spit to the mixture.
Next, we have a few different options. If you are searching the internet or asking a friend, a general advice you will hear is to put your device in a bag of rice. It may work in a pinch, but the method may cause problems. Although rice is absorbent, it is not able to collect all the moisture hidden deep in your phone; it therefore serves only as a partial solution. The rice also becomes mushy and sticky as it absorbs the water, and then you can stick nice rice in the seams and ports of your phone, or dust deep in the cracks of your device. You can loosely wrap the phone in a paper towel before throwing it in the rice, but this is still not the best option.