The phone goes in the toilet, the pool, or the sink. The immediate instinct for most people is to grab a bag of rice and wait. It's been passed around the internet for years, and it sounds plausible. Dry grain, moisture — makes sense.
It doesn't work. Here's why, and what actually does.
Why rice doesn't work
Rice does absorb moisture from the air. The problem is that the moisture damaging your phone isn't sitting on the surface — it's inside the device, coating the logic board, connectors and components in a thin film of conductive liquid. Rice in a bag outside the phone can't reach any of that.
What's worse, while you're waiting for the rice to do something it can't do, corrosion is spreading. Water, especially tap water or pool water, contains minerals and ions that begin reacting with the phone's metal components immediately. The longer that process runs, the more damage accumulates. Rice doesn't slow corrosion. Time is the real enemy.
What water damage actually looks like inside the phone
When a phone comes in wet, the first thing we do is open it up and look at the logic board. What we're looking for is the extent of corrosion — a greenish or white residue that forms when water reacts with solder and metal contacts.
Light corrosion on a few connectors is usually fixable. The affected areas can be cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and dried under controlled conditions. Some components that have short-circuited may need to be replaced, but the phone can often be brought back to full function.
Heavy corrosion across multiple sections of the board is harder. Some of those corrosion pathways affect circuits that are very difficult to repair at the component level. At that stage we're talking about whether data recovery is possible, rather than a full fix.
What to do immediately
Power it off straight away. Don't try to turn it back on to check if it's okay — if there's water on the board and you run current through it, you create a short circuit that causes much more damage than the water alone.
Take out the SIM card and tray. Shake out any visible water. Then get it to a repair shop as fast as possible.
If it's a Sunday night and we're not open until Monday morning, keep it off and somewhere dry. Don't put it in rice. Don't use a hairdryer. Don't charge it.
A note on water resistance ratings
Modern flagship phones carry IP67 or IP68 ratings. IP68 means the phone can be submerged in fresh water up to 1.5 or 2 metres for 30 minutes under lab conditions. Real life is different. Salt water and chlorinated water are more corrosive than fresh water. The seals degrade over time. A phone dropped from height into water hits harder than a controlled submersion test. And a phone that's been repaired before may have a compromised seal.
IP ratings don't guarantee your phone survives water exposure — they give you an idea of the conditions it was designed to handle when new.
When to come in
As fast as possible after the incident. Water damage repair is one of the few cases where time directly affects outcome. A phone brought in within an hour gives us the best chance. A phone that's been in rice for 48 hours and then switched on is usually much harder to recover.
We're at Majura Park Shopping Centre, Canberra Airport. If you've dropped your phone in water and it's during trading hours, call ahead so we're ready when you arrive.