Switch the wet phone off and leave it off

Turn it off and stop touching it. Some people say the thing that kills a wet device is not the water but the electricity running through the water — switching it on, or plugging it in to see, shorts the board at once and permanently — and some people say the same in the same breath: do not check whether it works. One person warns the tapping-to-see-if-it-lights-up reflex is what causes the short circuit. Then get the water out that will come out: pull the case, the card tray and anything removable; one person spins the phone in a salad spinner or swings it in a pillowcase to fling the water out of the ports, which is odd and, they say, works. The maker of one popular phone says, in its own support guidance, to tap the phone gently against your hand with the opening facing down and then leave it somewhere dry with some airflow — and it says not to push cotton buds or paper towel into the connector, not to use compressed air, and not to apply heat. That contradicts one person here who reaches for canned air; another person warns a tilted can sprays freezing liquid onto the board, so this page sides with the maker. People argue which direction to move air at all: one person says a fan, straight at it, taken apart if you can; another says never blow into the holes, because you raise the pressure inside and push water further in — hang it so the water drains from the biggest opening and move air across the surface instead. Why the hurry: some people say the liquid rarely destroys anything by itself; the corrosion that follows does, the white and green crust that grows on the contacts from the impurities in the water, and one person warns that can begin within a few hours. Which is why speed matters more than the choice of desiccant, and why what you do in the first minute is most of the outcome.

Not rice, and people have had this argument in many discussions, so here is the whole of it. Many people say the rice is a mistake: it does not pull water out of a sealed device, it leaves starch dust and fragments in the ports, and others say that any phone that came back after rice came back because of the days that passed, not the grain. The maker of one popular phone now says the same — no rice, because the particles damage the phone. But the people who defend it are not fools, and this page carries them: in one discussion, many people say rice is the thing you actually have at eleven at night while silica is the thing you don’t; in another, some people say rice is terrible and gross while many say it is a valid fallback that has saved their phones; some people who object say rice is ‘not as ideal’, not useless. The decider people agree on is simply what is in the house, and one person warns every rice success story is confounded by time. What settles the argument for this page is who is saying what: across some discussions the repair technicians — the people who open the phones afterwards — say rice fails to stop corrosion and clogs the ports, and people for rice are anecdote. One point is owed to the anti-rice side too: the claim that rice leaves ‘crystals’ inside a phone was called nonsense by some people, and people who dislike rice dislike it for the dust and the delay, not for crystals. Silica gel, then: some people say it is the better desiccant, and the catch is the one some people name — the packets from a shoebox are already full of the air’s moisture and do nothing until they are dried out again. Some people point out the fix: a low oven for the packets, and one person warns the phone never, ever goes in with them. One person buys unscented silica cat litter as a bulk source; some people save the packets from every purchase into a jar, and one person warns the jar has to be tight or they saturate in the cupboard. Then the method some people describe: phone and dry silica in a sealed box for two days, and people warn, one person each, not to open it to look, because you let the moisture back in. Finally the fan, which is where the strongest evidence here sits. Some people say moving air is orders of magnitude faster than any passive desiccant, and one person points out the same against rice by name; the argument that matters is silica-in-a-box against a fan, and people’s own decider is whether you can open the device — a fan across a closed phone is a fan across glass. One person uses a vacuum cleaner at the ports and calls it better than a fan; another says a vacuum killed motherboards with static. This page’s own ordering, from people: off, tapped out, moving room-temperature air, silica if you have dry silica, two days, and rice only if the alternative is the bathroom floor. Warm room air is fine — an electrical engineer in one discussion puts the ceiling around body temperature — and heat is not: one person dried a phone with a heat gun on low and this page refuses to repeat it.

Only for a sugary spill, only on the board, and probably not by you. Some people say high-strength isopropyl alcohol displaces water and evaporates fast, which is true and is why repair shops use it; the whole argument is this — some people say it dissolves the adhesives and silicone seals a modern phone is held together with, some say it is for cleaning corrosion off an opened board with a brush, never for dunking a sealed phone. Some people warn the same: no submersion for a device with glued seals. One person warns more sharply: the rubbing alcohol sold in a pharmacy can be a third water plus a bitter additive, and one person says you will rarely find better than 91 per cent in a pharmacy; another person points out contact-cleaner spray is not the safe substitute it sounds like, because it evaporates too fast to carry sugar away. The one case people make for alcohol is the drink that was not water: some people say a phone dropped in something sugary needs the sugar dissolved before it hardens on the contacts, and one person warns that is the only time to reach for it. One person suggested flushing with distilled water instead and was corrected more than once: it becomes conductive the moment it touches the dirty board, and one person warns it is aggressive to the copper besides. If you are not going to open the phone — and for a sealed, glued, modern device one person says the right move is not to — none of this is for you; the service centre is.

It is on. That is not the same thing, and people are honest about it. Some people say the liquid rarely kills a device on the spot; what kills it is the corrosion that grows afterwards, and one person points out the uncomfortable part — the impurities in the water keep corroding the contacts even with the device off and even once it feels dry, so ‘it works now’ tells you about now. One person calls a once-wet phone a ticking time bomb: the camera or a button fails later. So the first thing you do with a resurrected phone is back it up, today, and the second is decide whether it is worth a technician cleaning the board before the crust finishes the job. Two smaller things people mention: some phones detect moisture in the charging port and refuse to charge by cable until it is dry — one person says it re-enables itself, and the maker’s guidance says that can take up to a day, so charge wirelessly if you can and do not force it; and some people play a low tone through the speaker to shake water out of it, which is a real trick and not a repair. If the device is under warranty, people say the maker is the first call, not the fan; one person notes that opening it yourself can cost the cover.

A freezer bag, for the beach, the boat and the rain — with one word changed. Many people say a zip-seal freezer bag or a bin bag is a cheap, effective barrier for a phone or laptop against sweat, rain, sand and splashes, and that a touchscreen works through it; one person double-bags and sucks the air out with a straw so the screen presses flat. The word to change is waterproof. Some people say the bag is water-resistant, not waterproof: it will fail if it goes under, or under pressure, and some people warn every zip bag eventually leaks and to test one before trusting a phone to it. People argue whether a bag done properly is enough, and whether to use one in the shower for podcasts — some people say it works fine, some say people have carried broken phones into repair shops after doing it; the decider both give is what the phone is worth to you and what you will do if the bag fails. Some people add the boating rule: a bagged phone sinks, so put air or something buoyant in the bag, and one person ties a floating trinket to keys and phone for the same reason. Some people warn a phone working hard inside a sealed bag overheats, so no video or games in there. For anything more than splashes, one person buys a purpose-built waterproof case rather than risking an expensive phone on a cheap bag, and another notes some phones sell with built-in water resistance — with one person’s reminder that resistant means it survives a stated depth for a stated time, not that it is sealed. The cheerful small use: one person keeps the phone in a bag while working on the car so the manual stays readable and the screen stays clean.