How many times have you almost lost your iphone in the toilet? How about allowing that tablet slip into the hot tub? Do you know what steps to use to rescue your gadgets from these watery graves? If you're not, you could be setting yourself up for heartbreak you don't need. It's true--you can save gadgets that you've drenched.
Saving drowned technology
After you fish your device out of the water, do 1 thing first: Make certain its power is off. If a battery is fueling your gadget, quickly yank that battery out. If your device does not feature a removable battery, be sure it is switched off. You may think it is the water that causes gadgets to go haywire. It's not. The electrical shorts water causes is what scrambles your devices. Whatever you do, resist the temptation to switch the power back on to see what destruction has been done. By doing this, you'll only make things worse.
Other steps
Your next step will be to open up as many air holes as feasible in the device. What this means is removing SIM cards, back covers, SD cards and ear hole port coverings. The greater number of openings you create, the more air will pass through the device. Secondly, vacuum out as much moisture as you possibly can from the cell phone, tablet or iPod. Your ideal tool for this job is a vacuum which has a small nozzle. The more thorough you are here, the better. Finally, drop your cellphone in a bowl of something that will dry it. Lots of people recommend dry white rice. And this is effective, but Gizmodo comes up with a little something it says is even better—a bowl of dry Rice Krispies breakfast cereal. After 48 hours of drying time, turn your device back on. If you're lucky, it will pop back to life.
Keeping it dry
Of course, much better than rescuing a gadget from water is keeping it dry to begin with. There are numerous methods for this. The New York Times just ran a great feature ranking the many waterproof cases out there. Such options as the LifeProof, Joy Factory Rain Ballet and Liquipel cases come in handy when you are hanging at the lake using your favorite eReader. Our advice, though, is less complicated: Keep your electronics away from the water. It might be tempting to take your phone to the edge of the pool. But such a move might prove terribly expensive.</p