# Effectiveness of putting wet cell phones in rice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 3, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521 "2014-11-03T15:51:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/21 "2014-11-04T01:47:25Z")
a soft open grain, like oatmeal, in a cloth bag put inside a plastic bag with the device would likely work better. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/22 "2014-11-04T02:17:00Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Apparently iphones have an indicator to show they were drowned which voids the warranty. > [@Telemark](#): > > All phones have that. They don’t even need to have been soaked for the indicators to change and void any warranty, just wet enough. This is true. I worked for cell phone companies for 15 years, and never once dealt with a phone that didn’t have a handful of water indicators. > [@naita](#): > > None of those are controlled tests. My guess would be that no one has a) the cash to drown a significant number of phones combined with b) the interest in doing so. Pitch it to Mythbusters or derivatives. We routinely destroyed many, many dozens of each phone as part of our testing. The lack of interest is the issue. I’ve personally dropped phones 20 times on hard surfaces to see how they break. I’ve hooked up 12V battery chargers to a 5V charging interface, backwards, to see what the failure mode would be. If it were important to the market, we’d be doing this on a regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/23 "2014-11-04T02:53:45Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > I left my flip phone in my jeans pocket and they went through a full wash cycle.:smack: > > 5 days in rice and the phone worked, including the display. Phone and display looked pretty crappy though. Lucky it was just a $29 Walmart phone. > > But the rice trick worked well enough that I could get important numbers off the contacts list and such. But there’s a very, very significant problem with this: you don’t know if it wouldn’t have worked if you’d just set the phone out and let it sit there. I think the “magic” of the rice is just that it actually keeps people from trying to turn the phone on again. It’s a misdirect. Whenever I have somebody tell me their iPhone won’t turn on and they already tried holding the home and power buttons, I tell them to flip the mute switch on and try one more time. It works 75% of the time. I don’t think the mute switch makes a lick of difference – they just didn’t hold it long enough the first time but they’ll refuse to try it again if I say that. The mute switch is just a misdirect, but it “works.” ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/24 "2014-11-04T19:02:58Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > How can it be faster than leaving it in the open. The water has to evaporate out of the phone before the rice can absorb it. The rice can’t pull the moisture out. I suppose that might depend on whether you’re in Mississippi or Arizona. > [@Mangetout](#): > > If the rice is at equilibrium with ambient humidity, then it provides no benefit - it would be as good or better if the evaporating vapour from the phone was just allowed to blow away. Good point. My guess is that the oatmeal and rice I keep bottled up is not at ambient humidity, though. Well, not at first. By the time it’s nearly empty I bet it is. Silica gel would be the best bet; just remember you have to bake it first to dry it out. Otherwise, if you have packs of gel just lying around, it’s very likely to be at ambient humidity. I wonder if the tests cited above controlled for that. Their results could be more a function of how new the package was than how effective its contents were. But, I bet they used fresh, previously unopened ingredients, which would be best case results. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/25 "2014-11-05T13:32:43Z")
I’ve had excellent results from baking a laundered cellphone at 140 degrees F for 12 hours. Complete functionality was restored. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/26 "2014-11-05T15:10:06Z")
Did it come out gamy? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521/27 "2014-11-05T22:07:53Z")
Never used that phone for games. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effectiveness-of-putting-wet-cell-phones-in-rice/703521.md?page=1)