Liquid damage legal recourse?

[Ben496]

Having said that... I think when manufacturers are very careful and always say water resistant. Waterproof is something else...

Yeah. "Water Resistant: can withstand submersion at a depth of n metres for m minutes". That's pretty explicit about what it can tolerate, and nicely avoids the "proof" vs. "resistant" red herring.

 

[Ben496]

It should be emphasized more that the water resistance (not waterproofing) is really meant to reduce the chance of damage in case of accidental exposure, not guarantee 100% protection against it. These phones are not intended to be underwater devices.

I don't see how what it's "meant to" do is relevant, or what marketing words are attached to the quantitative specification. They advertise, e.g., IP67. That is a well-defined spec. If it fails while environmental conditions are within the range that it's advertised as being happy with, how on earth is it not false advertising? Why isn't this an open-and-shut case?

Phones have barometers. Seems pretty trivial to add a hook to the effect of "if the pressure exceeds the rated limit (usually around 16 PSI), log the pressure to the storage (solid-state storage is _tough_ and will easily survive pretty serious immersion), so the warranty can be honoured or voided in keeping with what the ads promised." That could create false alarms, but probably not very many.

Now if you can only find a small-claims court (no lawyer required, and recourse easily covers the value of a phone) that will take on a false-advertising case... perhaps worth a shot...

Indeed, why isn't _every_ device advertised as IP68? Since the position of the manufacturers is that they needn't honour their ads, this shouldn't do them any harm, right?

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not trying to defend the companies that advertise this. Rather, I want to make the user realize that the IP ratings are not considered when determining if something is covered under warranty -- that's the simple truth of how the fine print works. Warranties pretty much state that any kind of liquid damage is not covered, regardless of the IP certification. I agree that ads showing people using the phones underwater is misleading, but they usually get around it by including a little warning message along the bottom of the page or screen saying "Do not try this at home." Kind of like a car ad showing someone driving like a demon and drifting at high speeds, with a little message at the bottom saying, "Don't do this."

It'd be interesting to see how a lawsuit would pan out, but it'd almost certainly be a very quick slapdown of the plaintiff. If someone wants to try it, more power to 'em!