Wet iPhone Under a Fan. How Long?

October 16, 2022 11:01 AM

My wife dunked her iPhone in the toilet. How long should it stay under a fan to dry?

My wife dropped her iPhone (second-gen SE) into the toilet this morning. She quickly retrieved it, so it was submerged at most a second or two. Apple's website says this particular model is water-resistant up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. Following the instructions, we currently have it air-drying with a fan blowing at it. Apparently, the bucket of rice technique is no longer the way.

So, we feel pretty confident it's going to survive just fine. However, there's a complicating factor in that the phone is a refurb (not done by Apple) so we have no idea if the phone still sports its full water resistance.

How long should we leave the phone under a fan before we try powering it up again? A few hours? Until morning?

The phone was still working when she pulled it out of the water, not that that really means anything, I guess.

posted by Thorzdad to Technology (4 answers total)

It should be fine. It was probably fine without drying. But - the rice method actually does work pretty well. Better than a fan.
posted by bbqturtle at 2:47 PM on October 16, 2022 [3 favorites]

This summer mrs. kingless did the same thing. The only problem we had was that it wouldn't charge (the dialog told us to wait until the port was dry) but the phone worked fine. So at least wait until until the port is dry enough to charge.
posted by kingless at 4:17 PM on October 16, 2022

Best answer: This article says 24-48 hours and not to use rice.
posted by soelo at 5:43 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all. We put the phone under a fan for a couple of days and all went well. Crisis averted.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:25 PM on November 15, 2022