If your phone falls into the water, you will likely feel panic. Dropping your phone into a lake, pool, or toilet can spell disaster for your phone. You will be concerned that you will lose photos from your last vacation, work documents, text messages, and phone contacts. Thankfully, if you accidentally drop your phone into water, it does not necessarily spell the end for your phone. You have to act quickly and take the right steps if you want to protect your phone.
Why Is Water so Bad for Your Phone?
There are a lot of points of entry on your phone. These include power ports, speakers, and jacks. When water penetrates these points of injury, it comes in contact with circuits. Water is a conductor, so it carries current. This overcharges the phone with energy and fries the circuit board.
You might think that letting the phone dry on its own is your best option. You would be wrong. On its own, it could take hours or days for your phone to dry thoroughly. The minerals in the water that got into your phone may cause your phone’s coils, resistors, and circuits to corrode.
Water damage in phones can be deceiving. You may quickly grab your phone out of the water and see that it is working just fine. This is because the water has yet to reach sensitive areas in your phone. However, when you wake up the next morning and turn your phone on, it is either not working or it is completely dead.
How to Save a Water Damaged Phone
If your phone falls into water, you need to act immediately. For example, you are walking around Houston at night, you check the GPS on your iPhone, and then you try to put it back in your pocket, but you miss. Now, your phone is in a puddle of water. At this point, your only option might be taking your phone to an iPhone repair Houston shop. However, you may be able to minimize the damage by doing the following.
- Immediately get your phone out of the pool of water.
- Next, wipe the phone clean. If you have gloves, a cloth, or something to wipe the phone off with, use it.
- Get the phone as dry as you possibly can.
- Open up the back of the phone and take out everything removable. This includes the battery, SIM card, and additional SD card. Disconnect any peripherals, like headphones.
Don’t microwave your phone. It is not going to dry it out. You may actually cause an explosion or a fire. Don’t put your phone in a bag of rice. Rice grains may pull out some of the water, but there have been several experiments that show that rice treatment does not work fast enough to produce the desired results.
Put away your hairdryer. If you use a hairdryer on your phone, you are going to do more damage to already vulnerable circuits. Don’t put your phone in the freezer. When the ice melts, you will be in the same situation. Additionally, water expands when frozen. This may cause more damage to the innards of your phone than you expect.
Prevention Versus Cure
Everybody knows that when a phone gets wet, it has the potential to get ruined. If you have an expensive phone, be cautious. Be mindful of your surroundings. If you are near water, put your phone away or hold on tighter to your phone.
You can avoid dropping your phone in the toilet if you don’t use your phone in the restroom. If you have to use your phone around water, invest in a water-resistant case. Don’t be fooled by cases that claim to be waterproof. This is impossible. However, a water-resistant phone case can be dropped in water with no damage to your phone.
Conclusion
Your phone represents a major investment. Protect it at all costs. If it gets wet, follow the above steps to minimize damage.
