We get several calls a week about water damage, especially in phones. The main complaint is the screen has gone black or it will not take a charge. Many people still believe in the bag of rice trick and assure us that they left the phone in the bag for a good day. Today's talk to is dispel all the rumors about phones and water.
The rice method - Whoever first put on the internet that sticking your phone in rice to magically suck the water out must be the same person who said there is a hidden headphone jack in iPhones, all you had to do was drill in a special location to reveal it. Let's think critically, if rice really worked like this, absorbing ambient water from anything around it, when we open the bag we would turn into a husk. All this does is get rice stuck in your charging ports or worse. When rice gets wet, it gets very sticky. This makes it very difficult to remove and sometimes leads to charging port replacements. Lastly, rice is dusty. This dust also gets wet and sticky and gets all over the internals of the phone. It is also conductive, leading to shorts and other forms of destruction.
I thought they were water proof - They are not. Phones are rated for water resistance, not water proofing. There are even some cases to marketed to be water proof. Some actually are when used properly. The way you can tell if something is actually water proof is this: Can you talk into it? Can you hear out of it? If yes to either of these questions, it is NOT water proof. People say, Well what about that commercial saying they are water proof? I have not seen this commercial but everyone talks about Apple dunking a new phone in a fish tank and saying you can keep it in there for 30 minutes and walk away from the whole incident like an exploding building behind you in an action movie. None of this is true. I bet there is some fine print on that commercial that specifies water resistance, not water proofing. Commercials are meant to tell you a lot of words that are make you think they have said something, when in reality they have said nothing at all. Everything said is generally not quantifiable as to not be held liable for claims in court.
The take away - Phones have come a long way in fighting off water damage. In most cases, we are able to work on phones with water damage and come out with a working phone. As stated earlier, there are phone cases that are water proof, but they make it to where you HAVE to use a bluetooth device to use it as an actual phone. Water damage is the worst sort of damage for your device. It usually invalidates any warranty you have on the phone or any repairs you may have done on it. The problem comes from the fact that water damage is insidious. Everything may be fine today after getting it fixed but then out of no where three weeks later, your audio IC goes out. Corrosion is also terrible on your phone and it grows. It is our hope this article has helped you understand that electronics are still very afraid of water and to practice good prevention when bringing your devices around it.
Comments