On more than one occasion, you would have heard several anecdotes detailing on the intrepid tales of how smartphone and tablet users were able to rescue their devices from a watery grave. As much as we are forced to accept the authenticity of these tales, several techniques revolving around saving your device from succumbing to water are as follows:
- Dumping the phone and / or tablet in a bowl of rice
- Using a hair dryer
- Placing the phone or tablet in a microwave oven (in rare cases, that depends on if you’re plain crazy or have tons of spare cash)
- Placing the smartphone and tablet under sunlight
The above techniques might work for you, but we believe that the six steps that we are about to detail in the next section will prove to be far more expedient than these aforementioned techniques. Let us take a look at them.
Step 1
Cutting power to the smartphone and / or tablet should be the first thing that you should do before you proceed with executing absolutely anything. Do not grab rolls of tissue paper or a towel to wipe off the water droplets off of your device, but immediately turn it off to prevent any detrimental results affecting the device’s functionality.
Step 2
Start disassembling parts of the phone that can be removed easily. This would include the SIM card, memory card, battery (some phones come with non – detachable batteries) and the chassis cover. After you have removed these items, grab a dry cloth or towel and clean them up nicely. Please take care not to leave a single residue of water behind on these items.
Step 3
You now need to place your device in an air free environment. How exactly are you going to pull this off? Simple. Place the smartphone and / or tablet in a zip lock packet in an air tight container (the same one that you place your biscuits in to prevent them from getting spoiled). After placing the device in to one of the air tight paraphernalia, you will need something that will soak the moisture (aka water droplets when they start evaporating) from the surrounding environment. Our best bet is that silica gel packets offer the best possible result in sucking up moisture (several computer builders often place silica gels inside their computer casings in order to prevent moisture build up or rust build up in their expensive components).
Step 4
Develop enough patience to leave the smartphone and / or tablet inside that environment for a period of five days (minimum). This is the only sure way the silica gel would have absorbed all (or at the bare minimum 90% of the total moisture content).
Step 5
After five days have passed, remove the device from the air tight environment and attempt to power it on.
Step 6
If it powers on, then you and your smartphone are back in business.
Before we conclude this guide, we want to make sure that we place sufficient on a couple of steps. Powering off your device and placing it in the air tight environment should be done while wasting the smallest amount of time possible. This is because the last thing you want is water seeping in to the body of your device and making contact with the electrical circuitry of the smartphone (which would result in the short circuit of the device, if you haven’t powered it off).
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Another thing that we want to point out is that when your smartphone or tablet has made contact will any liquid, it will void any warranty placed on the device. This is because smartphone manufacturers are clever enough to place contingencies (or materials) that will automatically change color if they come in contact with water (similar to litmus paper). If you’re lucky enough, the warranty details state that if such a thing happens, they will be able to claim the device under these circumstances.
