Guide: What to do when his phone fell in the water

Hell and damnation! Your phone fell in the water. What to do? Just follow this guide, sometimes simple actions can save a life electronics.

The daily life is a minefield for our mobile phones. We are almost constantly surrounded by plenty of liquid containers, from simple glass to the pool via the bathroom. The phones may therefore often find themselves drowned, carrying down with them valuable information, and funds.

Fortunately, there are some simple things that can sometimes save water phones. So follow our guide to aid first phone to adopt the gestures to do and not do if your precious falls overboard.

The tranquil rice field

Dismantle the phone immediately after leaving the water certainly facilitate healing, but it has two problems. On the one hand, the guarantee may be canceled immediately, the other opening often requires special tools and a helping hand, do yourself could do exacerbate the damage. Instead, we recommend that you follow these steps.

1. Remove the phone as soon as possible of the liquid, the more time passes, the more damage will be important.

2. Resist the temptation to press buttons to make sure everything works. This could make the liquid penetrate deeper.

3. Please do not try to turn the phone on if it is off to avoid short circuits. Wherever possible, remove the battery. If it does not turn off, better to do it manually and violate rule number 2.

4. Remove any devices that might be connected to it, do the same with the SIM card and SD card, if applicable. Leave open ports to facilitate ventilation.

5. Dry the outside with a towel by ensuring that the gravity takes the liquid outwards. IPhone for example to the dock socket.

6. Once everything is dry, will start the recovery period. If the exterior looks perfect, there is always water in and so you have to let it dry while absorbing moisture. The solution that was not necessarily available is to enclose the phone in an airtight container with anti-humidity sachets. 

 The famous dehumidifiers

The D system solution is to completely immerse the device in rice believed that will dehumidifier office.Regardless of the material used, leave the phone to rest for 24 hours at least 48 or 72 hours at best. 

7. Pray and turn the phone on.

What not to do

One can read on the web that a quick solution would be to switch the phone to the hair dryer to speed the process. This is totally wrong, either with a hair dryer or other forms of heating (eg on a radiator). If the heat enable faster evaporation, it may damage the components. 

Worse, a phone does not always have plenty of vents, which means that the steam generated by the rapid drying will condense just Moreover, to fall on liquid water later. Just like in the "water cycle" well known to schoolchildren.

 The water cycle Picture: Wikipedia

Similarly, advocating the crazy idea of ​​wrapping the unit in a towel before putting it in the freezer will only be back to better jump, in the best case. If the water in the solid state is less conductive than in the liquid state, after the ice we will find ourselves at the starting point.

In the worst case, the glass being larger than water, the solidification could take off components.

Finally, the phones do not dry in a microwave proof!

Rouillez Youth

If your phone restarts, congratulations, you have won a battle but perhaps not war. Indeed, with time, the metal parts of the telephone may rust. 

A professional repair may be able to fix things, but time will necessarily his contempt, the solution will be temporary. However, experience in the water fell a phone held several months without problem, of what to expect a future model and especially recover its data.

What about the warranty

It's become a common practice on smartphones and more generally on electronic devices, we now find "Dumping sensors" that change from white to red if they have been in contact with a liquid.

 Sensor location on an iPhone 4 / 4S Image: Apple

Contact with liquid is almost always a cause for breach of warranty and will therefore be very difficult to replace the phone in this case. Sometimes if a single pellet turned red without any trace of oxidation replacement may be possible (emphasizing some). This is the case for example of a drop of water fall into the jack of the iPhone.

If it does not change color, and the phone does not work, a manufacturer probably proceed to exchange.

You now know the proper actions to take if dropped in liquid. Feel free to share tips that we would have missed in the comments.