How To Save A Wet Cell Phone

Lets face it… More and more people are owning cell phones. Currently, 80% of the population owns at least one cell phone. With many people owning cell phones, there are likely events where people are damaging their cell phones (either accidentally or deliberately). One of the most common damages is water damages.

Out of all the cell phones damaged by water or other fluids, 29% of cell phone water damage is caused by someone spilling drink onto them while 116,000 of cell phone water damage is caused by cell phones ending up in the laundry each year and 850,000 are caused by dropping the cell phone into the toilet. There is even a Facebook group dedicated to people who even drop their cell phone.

Even though your phone may be damaged by water, there are steps you can do to prevent any more damages to the phone.

The first thing you have to do to potentially save your cell phone is to first immediately turn the cell phone off, fluids can short-circuit the device and damage the internal components. After turning off the cell phone, remove all any cases, outer shells (if possible), SIM cards (if possible), and the battery (if possible) and do your best to dry out the outer regions of the device. While you are trying to dry out your device, DO NOT shake it as the fluids can fall into the unaffected areas and damaging the device even further. If you want (but you don’t have to), you can use alcohol to help dry out the phone as it will disperse the water.

After drying out the outer regions of the phone, use a vacuum (preferably a vacuum that does not produce static electricity) to remove the water from the device. After doing your best to remove water from your cell phone on your own, place the cell phone in a small bad of rice and let it set for a couple of days (don’t place the cell phone in a full batch of rice to prevent contamination [if you have a large amount of rice]). While most of the water will be removed from the device at this point, consider purchasing a first aid kit from Dry-All just in case that there is still some amount of fluids in the device.

While there are many other ways to help dry out a cell phone, you should not place the phone near any heating sources. This includes microwaves, hairdryer, and heaters. Not only will it heat up the device, damaging some of the sensitive components in the device, it will make the phone humid, which can still cause more water damage.

To prevent any more damages to the phone, consider getting a watertight case or some water protected seal to prevent any more damages to the phone.