Question about water resistance

[Apav]

Can soap ruin the oleophobic coating and water seal of this phone right away, or does that happen only from repeatedly washing it with soap?

I tried applying the AmFilm tempered glass screen protector twice but both installations failed due to an issue with the application tray. Even worse, the adhesive got into the speaker grill despite placing the sticker on perfectly. Because of this and the adhesive being runny in general, I gave my phone a good scrub with dish soap and running water both times. I only thought to do this because I watched a video that said I could do this to get the adhesive out. Only after did I learn this is a very bad thing to do. But is the damage already done? Is my phone much less water resistant now? Or is it more likely that I'm fine as long as I don't do it anymore? Thanks!

 

[o4liberty]

Personally I try to keep my phone away from any water usually only rain hits it a little and thats it. From what you described you should be ok if you are worring about it put it in a bag of rice overnight which will pull any moisture out of your device.

Remember phones are water resistant not water proof!

I remember when they started rateing devices and people were taking photos under water and surfing with them then all of a sudden they could not believe their device had water damage come on it's electronics which does not like water period.

 

[brava27]

Ever since these phones came out "waterproof" if never intentionally gone underwater or washed them.

 

[Mike Dee]

Personally I try to keep my phone away from any water usually only rain hits it a little and thats it. From what you described you should be ok if you are worring about it put it in a bag of rice overnight which will pull any moisture out of your device.

Remember phones are water resistant not water proof!

I remember when they started rateing devices and people were taking photos under water and surfing with them then all of a sudden they could not believe their device had water damage come on it's electronics which does not like water period.

Rice can only soak up moisture if it comes in direct contact with it. It does not pull moisture from air or out of phone.

 

[Apav]

Ever since these phones came out "waterproof" if never intentionally gone underwater or washed them.

I would never intentionally either for any other reason other than to get off liquid adhesive that wouldn't common off with alcohol wipes.

 

[mustang7757]

Rice can only soak up moisture if it comes in direct contact with it. It does not pull moisture from air or out of phone.

I have other myths if you can debunk ?

 

[Mike Dee]

I have other myths if you can debunk ?

Such as?

 

[Gary02468]

All of us here can only guess, but I doubt your phone has been adversely affected by the washing (though the adhesive itself may have stripped some of the oleophobic coating).

 

[ClintRo]

I admit I have done it in the past, but yea rice trick doesn't really work any better than letting the phone air dry.

 

[Mike Dee]

I admit I have done it in the past, but yea rice trick doesn't really work any better than letting the phone air dry.

Yeah...a lot of fell for that old myth.

 

[me just saying]

water resistant is NOT water proof. any water rating is based on pure clean water. In addition, water resistant can be weakened because of soaps, bumps, age and more.

someone mentioned rice, IMO, It works as good as storing the phone in paperclips for a couple of days.

 

[Gary02468]

Rice can only soak up moisture if it comes in direct contact with it. It does not pull moisture from air or out of phone.

Rice is a desiccant, which means it does absorb moisture from the air. In a sealed container, reducing the air's humidity does promote more rapid evaporation of moisture from the phone into the air.

Here's a peer-reviewed experiment establishing the effectiveness of rice for drying out hearing aids. Presumably the same principles apply to phones. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27869510/

 

[Mike Dee]

Rice is a desiccant, which means it does absorb moisture from the air. In a sealed container, reducing the air's humidity does promote more rapid evaporation of moisture from the phone into the air.

Here's a peer-reviewed experiment establishing the effectiveness of rice for drying out hearing aids. Presumably the same principles apply to phones. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27869510/

It can't pull moisture from a phone.

Here's a couple sources exposing it as a myth. There are plenty more out there.

https://experimax.com/resource-center/blog/fact-fiction-put-phone-rice-dry/

https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Don't_Put_Your_Device_in_Rice._Here's_Why...

 

[Gary02468]

It can't pull moisture from a phone.

As I said, it pulls moisture from the air, which in turn increases the air's ability to absorb moisture from the phone.

Here's a couple sources exposing it as a myth.

https://experimax.com/resource-center/blog/fact-fiction-put-phone-rice-dry/

Sorry, that's not exposing anything. That's just an ad from a repair service claiming that rice-drying is a myth, without mentioning any evidence, and urging you to pay them to dry your phone instead. But claiming it's a myth is different from showing it's a myth.

There are plenty more out there.

Yes, there are plenty of sites out there that repeat just about any claim (especially when they profit from doing so). What matters isn't how many there are, but what quality of evidence they present. The link I gave was to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, describing a carefully controlled experiment.

 

[comestim]

I work in a school district where we use rice in a Rubbermaid container for laptops and iPads and I would say about 90 percent of the time it works unless something corrosive like soda is spilled on the device or they waited too long to tell us.

 

[Mike Dee]

As I said, it pulls moisture from the air, which in turn increases th air's ability to absorb moisture from the phone.

It does not absorb enough volume of moisture out of surrounding air to pull moisture out of electronics especially those meeting IP water resistance standards.

I wasn't going to bring it up but in my line of work moisture control is a major issue to our highly sensitive electronics. I've spoken to our R&D about this in the past and our engineers are highly regarded SMEs in their field. There are effective ways to reduce or remove moisture from electronics components but rice isn't one of them.

 

[Mike Dee]

I work in a school district where we use rice in a Rubbermaid container for laptops and iPads and I would say about 90 percent of the time it works unless something corrosive like soda is spilled on the device or they waited too long to tell us.

As electronics that successfully revive from rice therapy would come back on their own

 

[Gary02468]

It does not absorb enough volume of moisture out of surrounding air to pull moisture out of electronics

That may well be the case. I know it does reduce the amount of moisture, but I don't know quantitatively whether the reduction is enough to matter often. I'd be interested to see some experimental evidence about that, if you know of any. But until then, I disagree that rice-drying has been shown to be a myth.

especially those meeting IP water resistance standards.

In the context of IP68 phones, people most often talk about rice-drying in order to get a wet charging port working again. That's outside the seal, so the water resistance isn't relevant to the method's effectiveness.

 

[Mike Dee]

That may well be the case. I know it does reduce the amount of moisture, but I don't know quantitatively whether the reduction is enough to matter often. I'd be interested to see some experimental evidence about that, if you know of any. But until then, I disagree that rice-drying has been shown to be a myth.


In the context of IP68 phones, people most often talk about rice-drying in order to get a wet charging port working again. That's outside the seal, so the water resistance isn't relevant to the method's effectiveness.

I was referring to IP water resistance mostly with regard to water ingress into the device itself when the rating is exceeded or the water seal has been compromised.

 

[me just saying]

maybe someone from the blog can do a test for an article. one drying on its own, one in rice and one in paperclips don't really need to be phones for the test.