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What to Do if You Dropped Phone in Water

What to Do if You Dropped Phone in Water post image

This is a true story. Two weeks ago, when we were getting ready for our son’s soccer game, we couldn’t find my husband. We did not know where he went. We looked and found out he was downstairs trying to take apart his phone – he dropped phone in the toilet and was trying to dry the wet phone!

Has this happened to you? Accidentally drop your phone into water, like toilet, sink, swimming pool, … ? What do you have to do if you get a wet phone?
I dropped phone in water - what to do

Here are things you must do, as quickly as possible, if you dropped phone in water:

1. Get your phone quickly out of the water. You want to do this as quickly as possible to minimize the water seeping into the phone.

2. Turn your phone off, immediately, and leave it off until it is completely dry. This will save the electronics and circuits inside.

3. Take apart the phone as much as you are comfortable, do this to the level that you know how to put things back when everything is dry. The most important things to take out are battery and SIM card. Put everything on a dry paper towel or other absorbing dry surface.

4. While keeping the phone stable and still, wipe off as much water as you can. If the phone got dirty, say it was in the toilet, you can use wet towel with clean water to take the dirty stuff off the phone first. It is true you don’t want more water get into the phone, but you definitely need get the dirty stuff out first. Keeping the phone still is to prevent water from flowing into more area inside the phone.

5. Dry it out. You can place the phone in a Ziploc bag together with uncooked rice or silica gel packs. We used DampRid, which is stronger than rice and silica gel.
Note: Don’t use hair dryer or any other tools that blow air into the phone. They will push the water go deeper into the phone.

6. Force as much air out the Ziploc bag as possible, and keep the bag closed.

7. Let the phone sit in the bag for at least 24 hours or longer if necessary.

8. Test it out after about 24 hours.

What to do to prevent this happen?

1. Be careful when carrying your phone or tablet.

2. Choose a water proof case. We reviewed several good baby-proof iPhone and iPad cases, all those are water proof cases. Some water proof cases are at a quite reasonable price.

3. Buy a phone protection insurance. I am not sure all insurance companies offer phone protection programs, but Protect Your Bubble is one of those that have device insurance programs. They offer protections for water damage, accidental damage (like cracked screen), and mechanical breakdowns. The cost is around $4-5 a month per device, and the rate goes down if you have multiple devices. If anything happens to your devices, Protect Your Bubble will replace your device in one day! They even cover the shipping cost.

No matter if you have kids around or not, no matter if the kids are the primary users of the devices or not, having an insurance coverage gives you the peace of mind. Take a look, you might find the insurance on the devices be attractive too.

Wondering how to monitor kids’ screen time on mobile devices? Check out this simple setting to set screen time limit.
limit screen time on iPad iPhone simple feature


{ 1 comment… add one }
  • Jake Tyler

    Well, I used the hair dryer once when I dropped my phone in water, and it was completely damaged. Too bad!

    Thanks for sharing very helpful tips!!!

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