As you already know, if you act really quickly after dropping your smartphone in salty water, you might be able to prevent any lasting damage to your precious device. You should know that at some point, even a waterproof phone might not survive it if salty water gets inside the phone. To help you with how to go about things in that situation, see How To Save Your Phone From Salt Water Damage:
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How Can I Save My Phone From Salty Water Damage?
Of course, the first thing to do is get it out from the water as fast as possible. The longer it remains in the salty water, the more liquid will penetrate into your phone to damage it permanently. As soon as you get it out, there are a few things that must be done immediately, and some other things you must avoid doing. See what you must do:
- Power it off if it is still on, and hold it upright.
- Get your SIM card and microSD card out from their different slots.
- If you own an older device, you might be able to open up the back and take out the battery. However, because a lot of the recently-made smartphones don’t have removable batteries, the best step to take would be visiting a phone repair shop, don’t do things yourself except you’ll be following a very good YouTube tutorial.
- Make use of a cloth, sleeve, or paper towel to dab your phone dry. Stay away from spreading the liquid around, because that could find its way into more of the device’s openings. Just ensure you soak up as much as possible.
- If the salt water damage looks like a major thing, make use of a vacuum to carefully suck out water stuck in the cracks and are difficult to reach. Ensure all small parts like the microSD card, SIM card, and battery are out of the way before you make this happen.
- Get the phone buried in a ziplock bag full of uncooked rice. Rice is pretty amazing when it comes to absorbing liquid, and it is a common solution for drying smartphones and tabs. You can also purchase a dedicated phone drying pouch, which should be available in your house to prepare ahead. If you don’t own one already, forget about buying one now because time is of the essence. Just go for the rice option.
- Allow your smartphone to dry for a day or two. Avoid all temptation to power it on to confirm it is working fine again. Just put your SIM card inside another phone so you don’t miss out on important calls.
- After some days, you can get the phone out of the rice, insert the battery, and then power it on.
- If your smartphone refuses to turn on after all of this, try charging it. If that does not help, the battery might’ve been damaged. Try replacing it or take your phone to a repair shop for a professional to check it out.
- If your mobile device turned on immediately, and it is working like nothing happened, you still have to keep a close eye on it for the next few days so you can notice any new changes you are not used to. You can keep experimenting by playing songs to check the speakers, and ensuring the touch screen is working fine.
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What Not To Do:
- Do not power it on immediately it happened.
- Do not plug it in or attempt to charge it.
- Do not press any buttons or keys.
- Do not shake, tap or bang the smartphone.
- Do not blow on it because it can send water into other internal parts of the phone that it had not reached already.
- Do not use a blow dryer, that could cause more damage too.
That is that.