A drowned smartphone is a situation you—or your friends and acquaintances—may already have experienced. How should you deal with it? The bowl of rice is already out of the question—so better read our great tips.
A smartphone dropped in water is among the 3 most common accidents related to using smartphones. If you act fast and correctly, nothing might even happen to it.
What should you do?
Of course, we’re talking about smartphones that don’t have any certified water resistance—or only a weak splash resistance. Devices with IP67 and higher should survive a water accident without any problems—you just need to rinse them properly and dry them.
Even before something happens, back everything up to the cloud and also make a local backup of your files. If you want to protect your smartphone as best as possible, there’s a wide selection of waterproof cases that will protect your phone really well in case it falls into water.
Buy waterproof cases on AliExpress
Where did your smartphone fall?
There’s a difference between dropping your smartphone into chlorinated water at a swimming pool, into the sea, or into regular water or a puddle. Chlorinated and seawater are much more aggressive—so you should rinse the smartphone right away in regular drinking or utility water.
Even smartphones that have a certified water resistance rating should be rinsed with regular water, because the certification applies only to regular freshwater.
Take it out of the water right away
And dry it. If the smartphone is switched on, turn it off immediately. This step helps prevent a possible short circuit in the internal components. If you can’t remove the battery, at least remove the SIM card slot and the memory card slot. This will help protect the data on them. Also dry them carefully.
Thoroughly clean every corner of the device without shaking it too much, and without blowing into spots you can’t reach—such as the speakers.
For more thorough cleaning, use isopropyl alcohol with quick evaporation and high purity. You can also use a cotton swab lightly dampened with isopropyl alcohol.
Evaporating moisture
A bowl of rice isn’t as effective as many of us think. Much better solutions are silica gel beads, oatmeal, or—especially—cotton sponges and towels.
However, don’t use a microwave or an oven, a tumble dryer, or excessive exposure to sunlight. The water turns into steam only at a temperature of 100°C.
That’s enough temperature to damage several smartphone components—even a short circuit or melting of plastic parts. You can place it near a heat source to speed up the process, but don’t overdo it.
After thoroughly drying each component, wait a few hours and don’t connect the smartphone to electricity until it’s completely dry. If you’ve followed all these steps, your smartphone may continue to work without problems.
What common practices do you use for a drowned smartphone? Have our tips helped you before? Let us know in the comments below the article. Follow ChinaPlanet, subscribe to our newsletter, and join us on our social networks: Facebook and YouTube.
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