It fell in the toilet. Your clumsy partner knocked a glass of water onto it. You forgot it was in your pocket when you jumped into the pool. That’s just a few of the hundreds of ways your phone could come into life-threatening contact with liquid.
Fortunately, waterproofing has become mostly standard on modern phones. New iPhones, Samsung Galaxy devices, and Google’s newest Pixel phones all feature some degree of water resistance or waterproofing. How well a phone resists water is measured on an IP (or Ingress Protection) scale. If your phone is rated with a high number, like IP67 or IP68 protection, congratulations, it’s probably going to be fine! But if it’s got a lower rating, or none at all, you should prepare for the worst before you start chilling in the hot tub with your trusty Sidekick.
So when your phone decides to take a dive, as soon as you’re done freaking out, you’ll probably begin frantically tapping all the buttons, blowing on it, or blasting it with a hair dryer to quickly get rid of all that water. While those are all well-meaning actions, guess what? Totally the wrong approach. Here’s the right way to rescue your water-damaged smartphone.
First, retrieve it as quickly as possible. If your phone is still in the bottom of the jacuzzi or the toilet, get it out ASAP. The longer it’s in the liquid, the greater the likelihood of damage will be.
Once the device is no longer submerged, power it off right away. Don’t try to press any of the other buttons or load any apps, just switch it off. Remove the case if you have one. If you have a phone with a removable battery, pop the battery out. You want to cut off power in the device as quickly as possible to prevent the possibility of a short circuit. Most of today’s smartphones don’t have removable batteries, but some older models, or new models built with repairability in mind like the Nokia 1.3, let you pop the battery out.
Do not blow-dry your wet phone or stick it in the oven! Heat can damage the delicate electronics inside. What you should do is give the naked, case-free phone a quick wipe with a clean towel, making sure no water accidentally ends up draining into its charging port, SIM or MicroSD slots, or headphone jack (if your phone still has one). If there are traces of water trapped inside cracks or indentations in the case, try carefully and conservatively using compressed air to blow it out. If you don’t have a can of air lying around, you can use your mouth to gently blow it out. Just be careful not to blow the water further inside the phone, or add any of your own spit to the mix.
Next we have a few different options. If you search the internet or ask a friend, a common piece of advice you’ll hear is to stuff your device in a bag of rice. It does often work in a pinch, but that method can cause some problems. While rice is absorbent, it’s incapable of collecting all the moisture hidden deep within your phone, so it only serves as a partial fix. Also, the rice gets mushy and sticky as it absorbs the water, and then you could wind up with gummy bits of rice stuck in your phone’s seams and ports. To be safe, wrap the phone loosely in a paper towel before dropping it into the rice.
