Another way to dry my phone
Photo after putting phone into bag of rice
I dropped my mobile phone down the loo, accidentally of course 🙂 . To be more precise it fell out of my back jeans pocket and sank beneath the surface; a trail of bubbles gave its position away. I fished it out, gave it a quick dry with a towel and then put it into a bag of rice. This seems to be the approved way to dry a wet phone but it didn’t work. I found another way to dry my phone.
After 24 hours
I removed it from the bag of rice and cautiously turned it on. I was not expecting it to work at all but I am always an optimist. Well it did turn on, the screen looked OK but there was a message, ‘No SIM inserted. Device unable to make calls or connect to mobile networks’. My immediate euphoria was slightly dampened.
The next action
Clean the outside of the phone, a displacement activity but it certainly made me feel better. I then removed the SIM card, gave it a clean with my glasses cloth and put it back into the phone. For safety I turned the phone off and on. I then rang The Wife and heard her phone ringing and she successfully rang mine back.
All now seemed good
I popped the phone into my shirt pocket and made a resolution to be more careful in future. Next day I went to take a picture and only then did I realise there was further water damage. The picture was fuzzy, out of focus and of no use whatsoever. I then looked at the camera lens and I could actually see water drips on both the lenses.
“Ummm” I thought to myself. “Bugger, new phone this one is effectively useless”.
Another way to dry my phone
I made a couple of phone calls to mobile phone shops explaining the problem but they did not inspire me with hope or optimism. I d0 not have the money to replace it. Google was no help either. I now felt really despondent and pissed off.
I muttered, “How can I have been so stupid in the first place”?
What gets in must get out
This thought struck me and it was painfully obvious. Carefully warm the phone so the water evaporates and the vapour will escape. There had to be a different method to dry my phone. Then it suddenly came to me.
Photo after 3 days on radiator
Another way to dry my phone
I carefully folded up a tea-towel, put it on a double radiator and placed my phone on it. After 48 hours there was a slightly better picture but I was not wildly optimistic. In desperation I gave it another day but in truth I knew that the pictures would forever be fuzzy.
After three days in an idle moment I picked up the phone and pressed the camera app. There was a photographic image crystal clear. I had got rid of the water from the camera lens. I really had completely dried out the phone.
Thrilled this idea worked
I ventured down into the Google rabbit hole with ‘dry out a wet phone’ but I cannot find any reference to this idea. Sometimes you just need a brainwave. I had definitely found another way to dry my phone. Call it a lightbulb moment
Associated articles
A Very Wet Phone and 5 Rules to Dry it
Another milestone in the inevitable progression of my MS
December 2019
Received this comment by email.
I visited the Croydon IKEA used the Handicap Toilet and saw an Apple I Phone under the water in the Loo. I retrieved it dried it with toilet paper. When i came outside there was a young Polish woman , not a handicapped person, waiting. She said ‘thats my phone’ i gave her the phone and asked her why was it in the toilet’ she replied ‘it fell out of my rear jeans pocket’.
I have related this incident to a number of persons. I am amazed how many women have told me that it happened to them. Why they keep such a valuable item in their rear jeans pocket is amazing. It obviously could be damaged when sitting down or go down the loo when using the toilet.
Use Industrial Alcohol to displace the water and then give it time to evaporate.
Hello MC,
Interesting ideas but it would be far too fiddly for me to do these days. MS makes this sort of thing impossible these days