Comments on: How my BlackBerry survived a swim in the toilet

CNET News' Ina Fried loved her smartphone already, but loves it even more after it survived an unfortunate "water incident." Here's how the incident went down.

[Angmarr]

hey thats lucky
.. sound like one of those .... "my friend's ipod/mac fell in the pool/storm drain/river but it survived" stories.

the only exception, the author forgot to say how amazing BlackBerry is!

[Angmarr]

don't hate now ... I'm just kidding!

[Seaspray0]

It could be worse. This is not one of those times you want to hear "it takes a licking and keeps on ticking", especially after a swim in the porcelain god.

[muskratboy]

and REALLY smart to keep testing it all along!

what better for wet electronics than to put electricity through them. good thinking, cnet tech person!

[pdditty]

"The time without my BlackBerry was unsettling. To be away from the computer is one thing, but to not check my e-mail every few minutes was unnatural." - Dont you think thats a little sad? Are you that important?

[Eddie-c]

It's not that someone is "important", it's how 'plugged in' everyone has become with technology now ... at one point many people had walkmans ... now it's ipod/other mp3 players. The cell-phone and smart-phone are now ubiquitous - try going round a store without finding someone going YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK at a high volume. E-mail access has also become a quasi-necessity and, yes, in some ways it does make people feel important - just like when laptops were issued to people and instead of it being "the company computer" it became "their laptop".

Of course businesses are shrewd - and ruthless - and will happily issue laptops & smart-phones to their employees because it increases productivity because the user is actually working over-time - but they're so "i have this" (call it stars or sh-- in their eyes) that they don't realise they are working 2/3/4 hours extra a day and dealing with e-mail at weekend while not getting paid for it.

While it could be perceived, by some, as "sad", people adopt & incorporate technology into their lives. That's the way it is.

[merlefisher]

Seriously though, people shouldn't be this addicted (yeah thats what I said) to technology. I mean come on, you can't even go 30 min without checking email?

[thetarget]

I think pdditty's idea is that that shouldn't be the way it. I don't think this is "adopt & incorporate" anymore, it seems that it is "part of" their lives. is. That kind of dependance on an external tool is really, 'sad'. Of course, the choice of words in this article might exegerate the overall idea.

[iroq321]

nice! good to know there is hope for if my phone ever decides to take a dip.

so did you use any one of those recommendations? paper towels? silica? rice? or just let it air out?

[bimmin]

This is one of the many beauties of a removable battery. Last summer I did a 300 mile hike through the green mountains with my Palm 755p and it rained a lot. Even though I kept it in a ziplock bag in my pack it still managed to get soaked with such high humidity. If I put the battery in and the screen started up funny I knew to take it immediately out.

[gsmiller88]

I love the reaction of your coworker.

You should have taken your BlackBerry's downtime to give it a thorough cleaning with a Clorox wipe :-P

[Eddie-c]

A user came up to me after lunch one day ... "My blackberry isn't working" ... I removed the backplate and saw the tell-tale red-sticker, accompanied by water dripping from it. "You got it wet, didn't you" I said .... "I just dropped it in the toilet" was the response. The mental reaction 'Gross' - plus shudder/cringe etc - is an understatement. I mean, come on people ... you really have to be using that thing while taking a leak/whatever?? And if that's not enough, what about the person on the other end!?!?!? "Yeah, hi ... oh, dinner [grunt] ... yeah where [grunt, splash, fart] do you wanna go". That's just plain wrong. Bathrooms are not the places for using those things.

[bwest33]

^ LMAO @Eddie-c ... I once heard someone on the can in a busy airport bathroom hosting a business conference call, complete with grunts, splashes, and farts ...

[NYTechie]

I don't think it's a matter of using your phone while on the toilet--it's a matter of it falling out of your pocket when you're pulling your pants up or down (I won't go into details). There are plenty of times when I've had my Curve in my back pocket and have to hold it to keep it from falling down and potentially falling in the toilet. It's not like I'm Twittering "I'm peeing".

[pahooboy]

Only one second under water? My wife's Razr phone went through a whole wash cycle. We let it sit for 3 days and lo and behold, it came back up. Beat that.

[Perry_Clease]

Well my iPod Nano went through the wash cycle, but even worse it went through the dryer. Thinking it was totaled I let it sit for several months then decided to see if it would start up. I plugged in the charge/synch cable, connected to a wall outlet, and lo it booted up! However, it will not hold a charge so I keep it in an iHome2Go and use it that way. To replace it I bought one of the new iPod Shuffles. I still have an old "Click Wheel" iPod and my iPhone.

Let this be a lesson to check your pants pockets before throwing them in the laundry.

Sidebar - My wife wears hearing aids and has a special dryer for them. She puts the aids in there overnight and it not only dries them but it uses an ultraviolet lamp to help kill germs. I frequently use it for my earbuds. see http://www.dryandstore.com/

[blondepianist]

@Perry_Clease
That happened to my brother's nano! After it went through the wash, it would start up but never charge.

[coreylarue]

put my ipod shuffle through washer and dryer, waited a week, and it has worked perfectly for 9+ months now...and that's with going to the gym every day.

[BOTNET]

mine was in top loaded washer... works but speaker is kinda cricket

[walwebster]

My Razr (a gem in every other respect) died suddenly and totally just the other day with absolutely NO warning after maybe two and a half years of careful ownership, and it's never been anywhere more hostile than my pocket.

This article just confirms what I always suspected about iPhones, BlackBerries and every other instrument with randomly misplaced cApitaLizaTion. They're simply high-tech flavours of the month that not only stroke the egoes of their owners mightily every time they put their hands on them, but in fostering these twin delusions of indispensability and self-importance, also help to develop a healthy industry resolving OCD issues somewhere down the line ...

[rickhigginshtbr]

got you beat, my first verizon phone 8+ years ago (audiovox maybe, I forget, one of the first flip phones in gold), slipped out of my hands at the mall... fell 3 floors into the fountain. Took a hair dryer to it at low power that night and turned right back on.

[theonlybuster]

yea the one mistake ALOT of people make is trying to use it the second the pull it out the water.

You quickly turn it off (if it's not already off)
Disassemble it. Remove the battery, battery plate, and anything else made to be removed.
Dry them with a paper towel or towen. DON'T BLOWDRY OR LAY IN THE SUN
Let all the pieces sit out for 1 -2 days (2 recommended, the longer the better).
After a couple of days, make sure it's all dry, reassemble it and try it out.

This is basically the steps with A LOT of electronic devices from cell phones, portable games, even laptops depending on how long they've been subjected to water and how much.


Now if you get soda your electronics, well let's just say I wish you ALOT of luck there.,you'll definitely need it

[a3th3r]

A friend of mine brought me his phone after spilling soda on it. Best advice I can off is to follow the steps above, exept after completely disassembling the device, clean off every PCB with isopropyl alcohol (higher concentration the better, i recommend > 90%). Alcohol evaporates quickly, so letting it sit for a day should be more than enough.

May not always work, depends how quickly you can remove from the power source, but has worked for me a couple times in the past.

[Norseman]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!!!!!

[Seaspray0]

Way back when keyboards used to be expensive, the common trick to cleaning out all the gunk and free sticky keys...

Dissasemble the keyboard and remove all the paper or water soluble items. Stick it in the dishwasher for a run (no dry) cycle. Blow it dry with compressed air, then let it air dry for a few days. Reassemble it.

[The_happy_switcher]

Maybe it was looking for its creator.

[eadeguzman]

Most of the time clean water won't mess up your electronics. Remember, water (pure, 100% H2O) by itself is an insulator.

Try spilling over soda or cofee on your BlackBerry or any keyboard and see what happens. It's toast.

[GO ILLINI]

True, but almost no water is pure H20. As water comes into contact with air, C02 begins to dissolve into the water forming Carbonic acid (H2C03) which conducts electricity. And besides the carbonic acid, it is very hard to find remotely "clean" water unless you buy distilled jugs from the store. Water in pools, from supply lines, and wells are filled with all sorts of additives.

[inachu1]

My ipod nano somehow ended up in the wash and found it after the spin cycle finnished and I took it out and it still worked!

4 weeks later it still works. I am still amazed.

[fritz269]

I had the same thing happen to my G1 just a couple of days ago. It did not power on..so I put it in the card out of direct sunlight when the weather was 78 or so and left it for a couple of hours. When I was ready to go home, I powered it up and the heat had dried up all the moisture with no evendent problems.

[alex5370]

Simple steps to follow if your phone gets wet

-Remove the battery imediatly! Cannot stress this enough
-Do not push any keys
-Do not blow into the phones openings
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TRY TO TURN THE PHOE ON IF ITS OFF, IF ITS ON REMOVE THE BATTERY IMEDIALTY

To fix the problem of it being wet as long as the liquad isnt dark like soda or coffee
Find your Wife or Girlfriends powerful blow dryer
set it to max and hold it steady on each side of the phone for about 15 minutes, open any conector or SD card slots ect remove the sim card, you may need to dry it more depending on if water or liquad got under the screen.
If you get soda or coffee on the phone its more than likely dead already after it drys cuz of sticky keys, but you can get some High end rubbing alcohol and soak the phone in it for 20-30 minutes and do the blow dryer procedure. I have yet to loose a phone yet, this procedure even worked on a old nokia phone all us teenagers used to have, after it being in a river for 6+ hours, but just because the phone doesnt turn on after u do the procedure doesnt mean its dead, if the battery gets wet enough it can short out and continue not to work. so try a afriends battery, alas if it doesnt turn on your phone is FUBAR.

-Alex

[Mergatroid Mania]

You don't use a heat blow dryer to dry any electronics that have gotten wet. Don't give people advice like that, they'll end up ruining their electronics.

[Bill_I]

You are TOTALLY correct, remove the battery ASAP, before the thing frys itself blind. Then use common sense to wash out any junk, rinse several times using alcohol and distilled water. Then find a sunny window sill and let it dry out slowly for a week or so.

[rickhigginshtbr]

i've had to blow dry 2 of my phones now, never had an issue...

[sevenalive]

Well that proves the point: Most cell phones are no cleaner than a toilet bowl!

Seriously why were you using your phone in the restroom!

[darkpoet25]

You don't necessarily have to be using your phone in the bathroom for it to fall in the toilet. If someone has it in their pocket it can easily fall out.

[loose_screw]

I hope the toilet water was clean...but just the thought is grossing me out.

P.S., you are seriously addicted to your BB. Try unplugging once in a while, it might just help your relationships with people.

[artistjoh]

Are you suggesting that being in phone communication with people is somehow harming people relationships and that not talking to them on the phone is beneficial? My loved ones bond through a multi-layered approach to communication. Eye to eye is great but not always possible, and at those times IM, email, phone calls and sms enrich our relationships.

Whenever I am without my computer or iPhone I feel isolated from people. Call it an addiction if you like, but I think it is wonderful that people can communicate constantly. When I look at old television shows from the 60's I feel sorry for the people back then - their lives seem so empty and limited compared to todays wired lifestyle.

For the record I have never spoken to any person from a toilet but there are many times the iPhone has been in my hand while entering. Why oes everyone assume Ina was actually talking on her BB while in there?

[pentest]

Seek help artistjoh

[Mergatroid Mania]

Same thing happened to my $800 HP Jordana. Being a technician and since it happened at work, I took it to my bench, removed the battery and took the unit all apart.
I used our electronics cleaner to clean everything and compressed air to dry everything off. I left it apart for the night and reassembled it the next day. Unfortunately the battery would only last about 4 hours before needing a charge, and the display was sort of iffy after that. Sometimes displaying perfectly and some times showing odd results.

Now, I don't take my gadgets into the washroom unless I have no choice (in a public place). I have a belt case for my phone and I've added a strap so there's no way the phone can drop out any more.

[mfrancis1_dotmac]

Dropped my old flip phone into a shot of Jäger (fun party!). Still worked OK for another year, but the bottom three buttons got stuck every once in a while. And the phone always smelled like licorice.

[pentest]

I knocked a bottle of beer on my graphing calculator, sticky buttons but works just fine.

[michaelportent]

I've also heard that putting your wet electronic device in a bowl of uncooked rice is a great method too. The rice absorbs all the water on it and the water that will seep out of it too.