Published on 2026-08-12 · 4 min read
Rice will not save your wet phone. This will.
Every week a device arrives that has spent a week in a bowl of rice. The damage is nearly always worse than if it had come in straight away. The problem is not that rice does nothing — it is that people trust it and therefore do nothing else.
What actually happens inside your phone
Water itself is not the killer. Distilled water barely conducts. What destroys your phone are the minerals and salts in tap water, rain, sea water and certainly soft drinks. Once those settle on the board and current flows across the traces, electrolysis begins: copper dissolves, solder joints degrade and leakage paths form between contacts that should never be connected.
That process does not stop when the water evaporates. The salt stays behind, draws moisture from the air and quietly keeps working. That is why a phone that booted again after a day in rice can still die three weeks later.
The first ten minutes
Turn the device off. Not to sleep, properly off. As long as the board is powered, corrosion is far more aggressive. Do not charge it and do not plug it into a computer to "see if it still works" — that is precisely when short circuits occur.
Remove the SIM, pat the outside dry and hold the device with the openings facing down. Do not shake it and do not use a hairdryer: heat drives moisture deeper inside and damages the adhesive seals. Bring it in for cleaning the same day. The odds of full recovery within 24 hours are considerably better than after.
And if it still works fine?
Have it checked anyway. An ultrasonic clean while nothing is broken yet is a light treatment. Waiting until the microphone dies or the battery drains means traces have already been eaten away, and then it becomes board-level repair. That is a very different story in time and cost.
Keep reading
How to make your phone battery last longer
Charge cycles, heat and the habit of always charging to a hundred percent. What genuinely matters for the life of a lithium-ion battery.
Repair it, or buy a new phone?
An honest framework from someone who would benefit from always saying "repair". Four questions that settle it.
Bring it in today and take it home working.
Albert Cuypstraat 274H, Amsterdam. Walk in during opening hours, or book a slot so the part is ready when you arrive.