GUIDE

Phone Fell in Water: What to Do — and Why Rice, Sun and Hairdryers Don’t Help

Phones fished out of the sea, the pool or the sink come to our workshop in Limassol regularly — often with fog under the camera glass, a dead screen, or no sign of life at all. Many have already spent a day in a bag of rice or on a sunny balcony. By then the water has done its work inside.

This guide explains what actually happens when water gets into a phone, why sea water is so much worse than tap water, why a cracked or previously repaired phone is at greater risk, what to do in the first minutes — and what Apple’s and Samsung’s warranties really say about liquid damage. Every factual claim links to its source; where we describe what we see at the bench, we say so.

Updated 29 September 2026 · Silent Cloud TECH, Limassol

In short

Water-resistant isn’t waterproof. IP ratings are measured in the lab — Samsung’s IP68 means up to 1.5 m of fresh water for up to 30 minutes — and Apple says water resistance isn’t permanent and decreases with normal wear.^3,10
Sea water is the worst. About 3.5% of its weight is dissolved salt, mostly sodium and chloride. Salt and voltage together can grow metal “dendrites” between contacts on a circuit board and short them. Samsung itself admitted that pool or sea water could corrode a phone’s charging port.^12,13,15,16
Switch it off and don’t charge it. No rice or cat litter — Apple explicitly advises against rice — no heat (sun, hairdryer, dehydrator), no freezer, no compressed air.^3,4
Water inside doesn’t just go away. When it evaporates, whatever was dissolved in it stays on the board. The real fix is to open the phone and clean it — the sooner, the better. That’s what our water damage repair does.
The warranty won’t help. Apple’s iPhone warranty excludes damage caused by “liquid contact”. In our experience, authorised service centres refuse to repair a drowned phone — but a board-level workshop can often still save the phone, or at least the data.^1,2

Water-resistant is not waterproof

Modern phones carry an IP rating under the international standard IEC 60529. Apple rates the iPhone 12 and later IP68 for a maximum depth of 6 metres for up to 30 minutes; older models are rated for less (the iPhone 7, 8, X, XR and SE are IP67 — 1 metre for up to 30 minutes). Apple notes that the phones “were tested under controlled laboratory conditions”.³ Samsung’s IP68 means “temporary immersion in up to 1.5 meter of freshwater for up to 30 minutes”.¹⁰

Three things these numbers don’t tell you: the tests are done in a lab — Samsung specifies fresh water — not in the sea; they describe a new phone; and, in Apple’s words, “Splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear.”³ Apple also lists what to avoid: swimming or bathing with your iPhone, pressurised or high-velocity water (showering, water skiing, surfing, jet skiing), saunas and steam rooms, intentionally submerging it, dropping it, and disassembling it.³

Apple Watch is no different in principle: Apple itself calls it “water resistant but not waterproof”.⁶ More about the watch below.

It matters what water it was

What makes water dangerous for electronics is mostly what’s dissolved in it. As the US Geological Survey puts it, “even a small amount of ions in a water solution makes it able to conduct electricity”.¹⁴ And when water evaporates, everything dissolved in it stays behind — on the circuit board.

Water	What it means for a phone
Tap water, rain	Contains some dissolved minerals. The least aggressive, but inside a phone that’s switched on it can still cause short circuits and corrosion.¹⁴
Sea water	About 35 parts per thousand of dissolved salts; sodium and chloride make up around 85% of the ions.¹³ Samsung tells users not to immerse phones in salt water and to rinse sealed devices with fresh water after contact.^10,11
Pool water	Treated water with dissolved chemicals. Samsung Australia admitted that if its phones were submerged in pool or sea water, “there was a material prospect the charging port would become corroded and stop working if the phone was charged while still wet”.¹²
Coffee, juice, soda, beer	Recent iPhones resist accidental spills of these, but Apple advises rinsing the affected area with tap water after any liquid other than water.³ Inside a device, the sugars and acids they leave behind are sticky and corrosive.

How salt and voltage grow metal on a circuit board

Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have studied this in detail. When a film of water bridges two contacts that have a voltage between them, it turns into a tiny electrochemical cell: metal dissolves at one contact and is deposited at the other as a branching, tree-like structure — a dendrite — that grows “from cathode to anode”. In electronics, such growth “can lead to short circuit of biased electrodes, potentially leading to intermittent or complete failure of an electronic device”.¹⁵ In tests with sodium chloride — the main salt in sea water — dendrite growth depended on the type and amount of contamination.¹⁶

Electrochemical migration: with water, dissolved salt and a voltage between two contacts, metal dissolves at one contact and grows as a dendrite from the other until it shorts them. Simplified, not to scale.

That’s why a drowned phone shouldn’t be switched on “just to check”: voltage is one of the ingredients. If this sounds familiar, it is — we described lithium dendrites inside batteries in our guide to swollen batteries. On a circuit board it’s the same idea, with different metals.

Was the phone already damaged?

A phone keeps water out with seals and adhesives, and they only work if they’re intact. Among the things Apple says to avoid to prevent liquid damage are dropping the phone and disassembling it, “including removing screws”.³ So treat these phones as not water-resistant at all:

a cracked screen or back glass, or a bent frame;
a screen that has lifted from the frame — often a sign of a swollen battery, which is a problem of its own (see our guide to swollen batteries);
a phone that has already been opened, for example for a screen or battery replacement;
simply an older phone: resistance “might decrease as a result of normal wear”.³

For Apple Watch, Apple is explicit: water resistance “can diminish over time”, and the watch “can’t be rechecked or resealed for water resistance”.⁵

What we see in the workshop

These are the typical signs we see on phones that have been in water:

Fog under the camera glass. Moisture has got inside the body — and the seals that were supposed to keep water out now keep it in.
A dead, flickering or striped display, or no image at all.
No power, or a phone that keeps restarting.
A muffled speaker or microphone. Right after a splash this can be just water in the port, which Apple says degrades sound until it evaporates;³ if it doesn’t clear, the problem is deeper.
A “liquid detected” alert when you connect a cable — the iPhone has found liquid in the connector.⁴
A charging port that stops working — the failure Samsung acknowledged for pool and sea water.¹²

And very often, a phone that has already spent a day in rice. Some phones look fine after a swim and fail days or weeks later: corrosion keeps working after the outside looks dry.

What to do in the first minutes

Get it out and switch it off. Don’t turn it on “to check” and don’t keep pressing buttons: every power-up puts voltage on a wet board — exactly what drives the corrosion described above.
Don’t charge it and don’t plug anything in. Apple: unplug all cables and don’t charge until the phone is completely dry, allowing at least 5 hours before charging. Samsung acknowledged that charging a phone that’s still wet after pool or sea water risks corroding the port.^3,12
Take off the case and wipe the phone with a soft, lint-free cloth. Don’t open the SIM tray while it’s wet — Apple says to make sure the iPhone is dry first.³
If it was only splashed or briefly dipped and works normally, follow the manufacturer: after a liquid other than water, Apple says to rinse the affected area with tap water, tap the phone gently with the connector facing down and leave it in a dry place with some airflow — a fan blowing cool air into the connector may help. Samsung also advises rinsing a sealed phone with fresh water after salt water.^3,10,11
If it was under water for a while, went into the sea, or shows any symptom — fog, flicker, no sound, no power — don’t experiment. Bring it to a water damage repair workshop as soon as you can.

Rice, cat litter, heat, freezer: why home remedies don’t help

Rice. Apple’s own advice: “Don’t put your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone.”⁴ And rice only touches the outside; it can’t reach water trapped under the chips and shields inside.
Cat litter or silica gel. No better than rice: they only dry the outside and can’t reach water trapped inside, and their dust can get into the ports and speaker grilles — the same kind of risk Apple cites for rice particles.⁴
Sun, a radiator, a hairdryer, a heated glove, a food dehydrator. Apple: “Don’t dry your iPhone using an external heat source” — and a heated glove or a dehydrator is exactly that.³ Heat is also bad for the battery — Apple warns that ambient temperatures above 35 °C can permanently damage battery capacity.⁹
The freezer. Cold doesn’t drain the battery — it only pauses it, and the power comes back as the phone thaws. Add expanding ice, condensation and the temptation to charge a frozen battery, and it does more harm than good (details below).
Compressed air, cotton swabs, paper in the port. Apple says not to use any of them.⁴

The main point: drying doesn’t remove what was dissolved in the water. Salt, sugar and minerals stay on the board and keep corroding it — especially once power is applied. The only reliable fix is to open the phone, take the board out and clean it.

What the warranty says about water

Apple’s One (1) Year Limited Warranty for iPhone lists the exclusions plainly:

“This Warranty does not apply: … (d) to damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse, fire, liquid contact, earthquake or other external cause”.¹

Apple’s support pages say the same in plain words: “Service for liquid damage to an iPhone or iPod isn’t covered by the Apple One-Year Limited Warranty, but you may have rights under consumer law.” To tell whether water got in, iPhones have liquid contact indicators: normally white or silver, an indicator “will turn fully red” when it contacts water or a liquid containing water — and it “won’t activate because of humidity and temperature changes that are within the product’s environmental requirements”.² Samsung, for its part, “does not guarantee that the device will operate normally if it is used in water or other liquids”.¹⁰

If your iPhone has AppleCare+, check your plan: Apple’s AppleCare+ terms (for example in North America) cover accidental damage “such as, drops and damage caused by liquid contact” for a service fee.⁸

From our experience: authorised service centres don’t repair drowned phones — they refuse the repair, and the warranty is gone. That doesn’t mean the phone is lost: repairing boards after liquid damage is exactly what our water damage repair and board-level repair are for.

Apple Watch and the sea

Apple Watch Series 2 and later are rated to 50 metres under ISO 22810:2010 and, according to Apple, “can be used for shallow-water activities like swimming in a pool or ocean”; Apple Watch Ultra is rated to 100 metres and can be worn for recreational scuba diving to 40 metres.⁵ But it’s “water resistant but not waterproof”, resistance “can diminish over time”, and the watch “can’t be rechecked or resealed”. Apple advises gently rinsing the watch with warm tap water after swimming.^5,6

Unlike the iPhone warranty, the Apple Watch warranty doesn’t mention liquid by name. It does exclude damage “caused by accident, abuse, misuse, fire, earthquake or other external cause” and damage “caused by operating the Apple Product outside Apple’s published guidelines”.⁷ From our experience: an Apple Watch that stopped working after swimming in the sea is refused under warranty — the swim-proof rating doesn’t change that. If yours shows fog under the glass, won’t turn on or won’t charge after the sea, rinse it with fresh water, don’t charge it, and bring it in.

What we do with a drowned phone

Diagnosis: we open the device and inspect the board to see how far the liquid and corrosion have spread. Diagnostics cost €40, and you get a fixed quote before any work begins.
Cleaning and board repair under the microscope: removing corrosion and repairing damaged traces and components — see water damage repair and board-level repair.
Parts: if the water has killed the screen or the battery, we replace the screen or battery.
Your data: even if the phone can’t be brought back, the data can often be saved — see data recovery.
Getting it to us: walk in to our Limassol workshop, or send it by ACS courier from anywhere in Cyprus — return shipping is on us.

FAQ

Will rice or cat litter dry my phone?

No. Apple explicitly advises against putting an iPhone in rice, because small particles of rice could damage it. Neither rice nor cat litter can reach water trapped inside the phone, and neither does anything about the salts and residues left on the board.

My phone is IP68. Does the warranty cover water damage?

No. IP68 is a laboratory test — Samsung specifies fresh water, 1.5 m, 30 minutes — and water resistance weakens with wear. Apple’s iPhone warranty excludes damage caused by liquid contact, and Samsung doesn’t guarantee that a device will work normally after being used in water.

The phone still works after falling in water. Is it OK?

If it was a short splash of fresh water and everything works, follow the manufacturer’s drying advice and don’t charge it for at least 5 hours. If it was in the sea, or you notice fog under the camera glass, flicker or a muffled speaker that doesn’t clear, have it checked: corrosion can make a phone fail days or weeks later.

Will the freezer help — “so the battery drains faster”?

No — it’s more likely to do harm. Cold doesn’t drain a battery; it only makes it temporarily unable to deliver power. Apple notes that battery life drops in the cold but returns to normal once the battery warms up, and that shutdowns in the cold happen because a cold battery’s impedance rises.^9,17 The charge stays in the battery and the battery stays connected to the board, so as soon as the phone thaws, the wet board is under voltage again. Meanwhile water expands by about 9% as it freezes,²⁰ a cold phone taken out into warm, humid air collects condensation, and the salt and sugar don’t go anywhere. Worst of all is putting it on charge “to check” straight from the freezer: consumer lithium-ion batteries must not be charged below 0 °C, because metallic lithium plates on the anode and the damage is permanent.¹⁹ A dry phone won’t be killed by the cold itself — Apple allows iPhone storage down to −20 °C¹⁸ — but for a wet one the freezer only wastes time. The only way to truly cut the power is to open the device and disconnect the battery, which is a job for the workshop.

Should I rinse my phone after the sea?

Apple and Samsung both advise rinsing a sealed phone with fresh water after contact with salt water or liquids other than water. But if water has already got inside, rinsing won’t clean the board — switch the phone off and bring it in.

Can the data be recovered from a drowned phone?

Often yes, even if the phone doesn’t switch on: if the memory chip is intact, the data can be saved in many cases once the board is cleaned and repaired. The result can’t be guaranteed before diagnostics. See data recovery.

My Apple Watch stopped working after swimming in the sea. Will Apple replace it under warranty?

In our experience, no. The Apple Watch warranty excludes damage from accidents and other external causes and from use outside Apple’s published guidelines, and Apple says water resistance diminishes over time and can’t be restored. Rinse the watch with fresh water, don’t charge it, and have it checked.

How quickly should I act?

As soon as possible. Corrosion keeps working after the device looks dry, so the sooner the phone is opened and cleaned, the better the chances for both the device and your data.

Sources

All links checked on 29 September 2026.

Apple

Samsung

Regulators, agencies and research

ACCC — Samsung Australia to pay $14m penalty for misleading water resistance claims (23 June 2022)
NOAA — Why is the ocean salty?
USGS — Conductivity (Electrical Conductance) and Water
Minzari D., Jellesen M. S., Møller P., Ambat R. (2011). On the electrochemical migration mechanism of tin in electronics. Corrosion Science 53(10), 3366–3379.
Verdingovas V., Jellesen M. S., Ambat R. (2013). Influence of sodium chloride and weak organic acids (flux residues) on electrochemical migration of tin on surface mount chip components. Corrosion Engineering, Science and Technology 48(6), 426–435.

Cold and freezing

Phone, tablet or laptop been in water? Switch it off, don’t charge it and bring it to Silent Cloud TECH in Limassol — or send it by ACS courier from anywhere in Cyprus, with return shipping on us. The sooner we can open and clean it, the better the outcome. Diagnostics are €40, followed by a fixed quote before any work begins. More about water damage repair.

Call +357 25 030 676 or +357 94 044 066, message us on WhatsApp, or find us on Telegram at @silentcloudtech. English and Russian spoken.