How Long Does Water Damage Take To Show Phone

Mutual communication says that if you've dropped your smartphone into the toilet—or some other torso of liquid—all you have to practise is toss your affected device into a basin of rice and everything will be fine come up morning.

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Sadly, this is more a myth than useful communication. But that doesn't mean you should give up on your waterlogged phone. Before you try going to a repair shop (and potentially spend hundreds of dollars), there are plenty of DIY hacks you lot can try out.

Waterproof vs. Water-Resistant

First, it's worth knowing if your phone is in any existent danger. In contempo years, many smartphone manufacturers have fabricated their devices water-resistant. But water resistant is non the same thing as waterproof.

Waterproof means that a device is impervious to water for whatsoever duration, while water-resistant ways that a given device is graded for h2o exposure for a given corporeality of time and up to a certain depth. When we talk about watches, smartphones, and tablets, we usually mean water-resistant.

To figure out how tough your telephone stands up against water, y'all'll need to familiarize yourself with the IP standard, which the International Electrotechnical Commission in Geneva, Switzerland drew up to designate how resistant an electronic device is to freshwater and other common materials like dirt, grit, or sand.

IEC

The next digit, following "IP," is the rating for a device'due south resistance to solids. So, all h2o-resistant phones start out with "IP6" in the code proper noun, which tells you that no harmful clay or dust will get into the unit fifty-fifty following direct contact for 8 hours.

The fourth digit volition exist either a 7 or an viii, meaning your device is either rated IP67 or IP68. The former standard means that your phone can be submerged in upwards to 1 meter of freshwater for almost xxx minutes without any seeping into the device, while IP68 ways that the device can be submerged in upwardly to one.five meters of water for upward to xxx minutes.

Simply if your device doesn't encounter either standard, similar the budget-friendly Pixel 3a, you'll demand to jump into activity.

First, Turn Off Your Phone

close up of sim card and mobile phone on white table

Halfdark Getty Images

After you've fished out your telephone, immediately power down the device to reduce the chance of any electronic components shorting on you.

Next, utilize a pin or a SIM menu removal tool to pop open the SIM tray and remove the SIM carte du jour. Water could have gotten into this tiny opening and you don't want to risk having to supervene upon your SIM card, as well. It'southward not a huge expense, only it can be a pain.

⚠️ Take out your bombardment if y'all tin can, simply at that place is a good gamble that your telephone doesn't accept a removable bombardment.

Dry Your Phone ASAP

samsung galaxy s5 smartphone, back removed, showing battery, sim card

RapidEye Getty Images

Next upward: dry out your phone off. This sounds like the simplest footstep, only this is actually where things get tricky. While rice is that ever-popular urban legend, it might not be the best material to soak up excess H2O.

Don't even think about taking a hair dryer to your handset. Added heat could cause corrosion if there is any h2o on your phone's hardware. Instead, start with a soft, microfiber cloth—the kind yous use to wipe smudges off of your spectacles. If you can remove the back console of your phone, use a cloth to wipe down the components within.

This should go without saying, only don't put it in the microwave. You lot're only going to grab your phone on burn down, which certainly will make information technology dry, but non very operational. Instead, if you want some warmth to coax out whatever h2o has non yet dissipated, consider letting your phone remainder on a windowsill in some sunlight or using air-in-a-can to boom the water out.

So About That Rice...

high angle view of silica gel over black background

Mgr. Jakub Cuba / EyeEm Getty Images

You could try powering your phone on at this point to assess the impairment, but we recommend taking a further stride before risking information technology. Submerge your telephone in a desiccant—a substance that volition induce dryness by absorbing water.

Just know that rice isn't as absorptive equally y'all may think. Gazelle, a company known for ownership used and broken devices and then reselling them, conducted a series of experiments to see which desiccants worked best with which phones. In the tests, Gazelle submerged nine different smartphones for ten seconds each before placing the phones into a basin of some absorbent household material, like rice.

"If a drying agent is used, silica gel is the all-time of the options tested, followed by couscous and instant rice."

Half dozen of nine devices did power dorsum on after using the rice method, and another ii were recovered enough to at to the lowest degree pull most of the data from the phone. Interestingly, Samsung devices did improve with the rice than iPhones.

Nonetheless, it turned out that rice was yet an "inferior" drying agent, coming backside not merely silica gel—the packets that come in the package with about electronics to keep moisture at bay during shipment and throughout a device's shelf life—but besides other materials like oats and couscous.

"If a drying agent is used, silica gel is the best of the options tested, followed by couscous and instant rice. Conventional true cat litter, oats, and chia seeds are not recommended because of the dust and debris that they deposit inside of the phone," the visitor wrote in its findings. "Water damage recovery kits that contain small quantities of silica gel are not recommended because they are unlikely to perform likewise as open air. Uncooked white rice is non recommended due to its poor performance as a drying agent."

So use silica instead of rice. If you don't take that, try some oats. Never seal the container that you're using, y'all desire the h2o to evaporate.

If All Else Fails...

If your phone was submerged for a proficient corporeality of time, or your phone brusk-circuited, y'all withal take options. Apple tree accepts water-damaged phones as function of its merchandise-in plan, though you'll have to have tempered expectations for how much money you'll become on a gift bill of fare in render.

If yous're non Team iPhone, you can resell your device on a site similar Gazelle, which likewise accepts h2o-damaged devices. If those methods don't yield enough cash to buy a new phone, maybe you can at least purchase a waterproof case in preparation for your next one.

What Nearly Tablets and Laptops?

With tablets, y'all'll want to follow the aforementioned general rules as above, though yous may not have a sim card to remove. With laptops, though, your arroyo will diverge a fleck—practiced luck plumbing fixtures your laptop into a bowl of silica gel.

While powering down a laptop to avoid curt-circuiting, don't effort to pull any chargers out of the wall with your bare hands—it'southward a serious shock threat. Instead, plow off the power by flipping the corresponding switches in your circuit breaker earlier you unplug the charger. Have the back plate off and wipe down the components with a microfiber towel. You should set the estimator upside downward and allow it to air dry. When you power information technology back on, yous should be good to get.

If not, try replacing the battery. If you're still stuck, well, you lot're but going to have to hit a repair shop.

Courtney Linder Deputy Editor Before joining Pop Mech, Courtney was the applied science reporter at her hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.