How to Save Your Phone After a Short Swim

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Photo courtesy of DigitalTrends

It happens to everyone at least once in their life, your cellphone becomes a drowning victim. With the price of phones these days it is worth a shot at reviving it rather than declaring your phone DOA. Here is a few steps gathered from various sources on how to dry out your waterlogged cellphone or device. Most are pretty obvious but need to be stated as a reminder in the time of panic and chaos:

  1. Get your phone to safety. Don’t just stare in disbelief and feel like all is lost. Get it out of water immediately!!!!!
  2. Remove the battery as quickly as possible. Power and water generally do not mix (good time to remove the sim card too)
  3. Dry the phone the best you can. Shake it like a Polaroid but just make sure it doesn’t fly out of your hands
  4. Remove everything else you can.. this includes the memory card, rubber covers and other removable pieces
  5. Put your phone in bowl of rice or a bowl of silica gel packets you’ve accumulated from Christmas gifts
  6. Here’s the hardest part… Wait! Wait a day or so and hope for the magic to happen

There are some great success stories all over the web hat happen because of the rice theory. Others have stated that soaking the device in alcohol does the trick too. This works because the moisture is removed from the device by the rice or alcohol. It can even remove moisture from under the screen. There are no guarantees with any of these methods but it may be your best shot if you didn’t buy an accidental warranty. If it works you’ll probably have a little pink sticker under your battery to remind you of the swim, but, thankfully, your phone will be alive again. Personally I wish I new these tricks back in ’96 when my Motorola pager took a dunk. It could happen at anytime.

Via WikiHow, Lifehacker

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1 Comment on "How to Save Your Phone After a Short Swim"

  1. Thanks. Good tips. That’s the bummer about the iPhone. No removable battery. I’d feel nervous dipping an iPhone or any phone with the battery in it, into alcohol.

    I dropped my iPhone in the water….the screen went on and off and the phone kept rebooting every 20secs for about a day. I shook it out and let it lay for a whole day. Thank goodness it is still working to this day. The screen seems to pulse when I set the brightness down low…but that seems to be the only side-effect I’ve had. I count myself lucky.

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