Can a YouTube video really fix your wet phone?

Every time for the past 4 years, dozens of radical person shown up successful the comments of 1 peculiar YouTube, declaring their emotion and appreciation for the content. The content: 2 minutes and six seconds of deep, debased buzzing, the benignant that makes your telephone vibrate connected the table, underscoring a vaguely trippy animation of swirled stained glass. 

It’s not a bully video. But it’s not meant to be. The video is called “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ).” There are galore others similar it, too. And the comments — “the community,” arsenic truthful galore determination notation to it — are astir each radical who conscionable got their telephone bedewed successful 1 mode oregon another. “Walked done a stream with the telephone successful my pocket,” 1 caller 1 says. “Yeah the steam from the ablution is the crushed I’m here,” says another. “Was utilizing my telephone successful the ablution this is simply a lifesaver.” They spell connected and connected similar this, galore of them from repetition offenders. “We are backmost erstwhile again the 3rd clip this month.” “its been 3 weeks and im backmost again.” “Dropped my crap successful the ablution AGAIN!”

If you judge the comments, astir fractional the video’s 45 cardinal views travel from radical who bring their telephone into the ablution oregon bathtub and spot that they tin play this video and everything volition beryllium fine. I encountered it for the archetypal clip earlier this twelvemonth aft my nephew’s telephone slipped retired of his pouch and into a stream adjacent our Airbnb successful a tiny municipality successful Virginia. We semi-miraculously recovered his phone, past brought it wrong and started trying to adust it off. A infinitesimal later, 1 of his friends conscionable casually suggested playing “one of those videos that gets the h2o out.” We enactment connected “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ),” and ultimately, the telephone was fine.

Ever since, I’ve been trying to fig retired whether these videos truly work. Are each these fortunate ablution scrollers conscionable the beneficiaries of phones that person go acold much waterproof and rugged successful caller years? Or should we halt recommending atom and commencement recommending “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )”? 

The archetypal happening I did was inquire telephone makers what they thought. No 1 astatine Apple, Google, oregon Samsung offered a much absorbing reply than to constituent to a generic “what to bash if your telephone gets wet” enactment page, but a mates of different folks I talked to indicated they thought the mentation seemed tenable enough.

The mentation goes similar this: each a talker is truly doing is pushing aerial around, and if you tin get it to propulsion capable air, with capable force, you mightiness beryllium capable to propulsion droplets of liquid retired from wherever they came. “The lowest code that that talker tin reproduce, astatine the loudest level that it tin play,” says Eric Freeman, a elder manager of probe astatine Bose. “That volition make the astir aerial motion, which volition propulsion connected the h2o that’s trapped wrong the phone.” Generally, the bigger the speaker, the louder and little it tin go. Phone speakers thin to beryllium tiny. “So those YouTube videos,” Freeman says, “it’s not, like, truly heavy bass. But it’s successful the debased scope of wherever a telephone is capable to marque sound.” 

The champion real-world illustration of however this tin enactment is astir apt the Apple Watch, which has a dedicated diagnostic for ejecting h2o aft you’ve gotten it wet. When I archetypal reached retired to iFixit to inquire astir my water-expulsion mystery, Carsten Frauenheim, a repairability technologist astatine the company, said the Watch works connected the aforesaid mentation arsenic the videos. “It’s conscionable a circumstantial oscillating code that pushes the h2o retired of the talker grilles,” helium said. “Not definite however effectual the third-party versions are for phones since they’re astir apt not ideally tuned? We could test.”

The institution did, successful fact, test. Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s pb teardown engineer, and Chayton Ritter, an engineering pupil who besides works with iFixit’s editorial department, took 4 phones and got them wet. We went with an iPhone 13, a Pixel 7 Pro, a Pixel 3, and a Nokia 7.1, each chosen not scientifically but due to the fact that they were the devices I had useful and was consenting to destruct successful the sanction of science. Each telephone went into a UV bath for astir a minute, aft which Ritter took it out, tapped it to get immoderate h2o out, played 1 of the water-ejection videos, and near it retired overnight. The adjacent day, helium checked to spot wherever determination was inactive residue from the UV dye, an denotation that liquid had gotten successful and not travel out.

The results were each implicit the place. The Pixel 7 Pro was fundamentally bony dry, the Nokia 7.1 was much oregon little ruined, and the iPhone 13 and Pixel 3 were determination successful between. But these aren’t perfectly controlled tests, Mokhtari was cautious to note: a phone’s seal tin alteration implicit clip oregon beryllium breached successful unnoticeable ways. He and Ritter some said emphatically that nary substance what your telephone shaper advertises oregon what you’ve experienced before, it’s ever a hazard to get your telephone wet. And it gets riskier implicit time.

As to the YouTube video’s role, though, the grounds was reasonably clear. It works! A little. As helium played the video connected each phone, Ritter besides took close-up video of the talker connected each phone, and successful each case, the telephone instantly blasted retired a flurry of droplets. The effect didn’t past long, but it was intelligibly ejecting h2o that wasn’t coming retired otherwise. 

The videos weren’t a implicit solution to the problem, though. A smartphone’s talker seems to beryllium almighty capable to propulsion aerial retired from close adjacent to the speaker, but not to lick problems elsewhere successful the instrumentality — peculiarly underneath the buttons, the USB port, oregon the SIM paper slot, which were the different astir communal intrusion spots. And if it didn’t get the liquid retired successful that archetypal burst, Ritter recovered it mostly conscionable sloshed the droplets backmost and distant arsenic the talker moved. So, helium says, “I accidental [the videos] benignant of work. It can’t hurt, but I don’t spot it being an end-all-be-all hole oregon a mode to propulsion each the liquid out.”

That mightiness beryllium wherefore companies similar Apple and Samsung don’t connection h2o expulsion arsenic a diagnostic for their phones, erstwhile they bash for their smartwatches. “There are less cavities and holes successful the watches than determination are connected the phones, which allows them to plan to propulsion the h2o retired from those cavities,” Mokhtari says. “On the phone, the speakers are located astatine the bottommost and the apical of the phone, which means you can’t get to cavities similar the SIM paper slot. It’s conscionable not imaginable to propulsion h2o retired from those cavities.”

The bully quality for the ablution scrollers is that phones truly are getting much water-resistant: 3 of the 4 phones Ritter tested inactive worked fine, and the newest of them, the Pixel 7 Pro, had nary lingering liquid astatine all. The atrocious quality is that there’s nary warrant they’ll enactment water-resistant forever. And the truly atrocious quality is that if you’re showering with your phone, you’re tempting destiny adjacent more. “I don’t cognize what different worldly is successful shampoo,” Ritter says, “but it’s astir apt much conductive — very seldom are you getting what amounts to perfectly caller h2o wrong of your iPhone.”

So, sure, bookmark a water-expulsion video, and load it up successful lawsuit of emergency. Join the “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )” community, wherever everyone seems to basal for each other’s instrumentality survival. But don’t spot it excessively much. Everyone I talked to ended up offering the aforesaid spot of advice: conscionable support your telephone retired of the shower.