Fact or Fiction: Is Putting a Wet Phone in Rice Helpful?

Fact or Fiction: Is Putting a Wet Phone in Rice Helpful?
October 4, 2022

Perhaps you recently jumped in the pool with your phone in your pocket. Maybe you accidentally dropped your phone into a giant puddle. All of a sudden, it will not turn on, and you lost the conversation you were just having. Even worse, you need that phone to do your job. All of a sudden, it hits you. You can put your phone in some rice and save it, right? This is a persistent statement that people have heard, but there is not a lot of truth behind it.

Putting your phone in rice is not necessarily a good idea, but there are other options available. What do you need to know?

Why You Should Avoid Putting Your Phone in Rice

It is not exactly a secret that rice absorbs water. After all, that is why you use water to cook it. Even though rice may be able to suck some of the water out of your phone, it can actually cause some damage.

Rice has a significant amount of starch. Starch can speed up the corrosion process inside of the device, even if the water is extracted from your phone. As a result, your phone may start to rust more quickly, causing significant damage. Therefore, you need to resist the urge to immediately drop your phone in a bag of rice. What should you do instead?

What To Do Instead

Before you can even think about drying out your phone, you need to do some damage control to minimize the harm. Some of the steps you need to take include:

  • Make sure your phone is completely turned off.
  • If your phone has a case on it, go ahead and take that off.
  • Remove the SIM card from your phone.
  • Leave the SIM card tray open. You do not want to trap any water inside, and keeping it open will encourage water to evaporate from the interior.
  • Go ahead and wipe down the exterior of the phone. Use a cloth that is not going to scratch the phone.

Now, it is time to explore a few options that could help you remove water from your phone.

Consider Letting It Air Dry

You might be surprised to hear that you may have some success by letting your phone dry overnight in the air. You should place your phone on a flat surface. You might want to put a paper towel underneath it. Make sure your phone is located in a dry, warm space. You do not want the area to be too hot, as the water inside your phone could start to overheat. That could cause further damage. You might even want to consider placing a fan in front of the phone to blow dry it.

Consider Using Silica Gels

If you have any food items that have silica gel packets, you might want to use those to dry out your phone. You may want to place a few of these gel packets under your phone. Then, place a few more on top. After this, you should let your phone sit there for a few hours. The silica gel packets will gradually absorb the water, and your phone may turn back on. You need to avoid checking on your phone every few minutes. You need to give the silica gel packets time to do their jobs.

Reach Out To an Expert

Ultimately, you should consider reaching out to an expert who can help you dry out your phone. Even though water damage can be serious, there are opportunities to extract the water from your phone and save the device. Experts have a wide variety of advanced tools at their disposal that they can use to speed up the drying process and save some of the internal components.

Once you have one of the drying methods above put in place, you might want to reach out to an expert who can provide additional advice. That is where our team can help you.

Call Cell Phone Hospital for Help With Your Phone

In the end, if you are looking for a way to fix a phone that has been exposed to water, you need to reach out to an expert who can help you. We are the Cell Phone Hospital, and we have worked with a wide variety of devices. No matter what type of damage your phone might have been exposed to, we encourage you to reach out to our team to explore all of the options you have available. There is a chance that we might be able to save your phone, and we might even be able to save all of the data you have on it. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you, and let us fix your phone.