In water with my smartphone... ENDing

Do you always protect your smartphone when going outdoor esp. if you have in mind to do something with water? And do you care about the data in your device or at least the gadget itself?

Well, I also thought about myself to be extra cautious. In reality, not that much. Trying to cross seemingly low and slow stream, at the beginning just knee-high, I reluctantly had to admit the stream to be more resilient than me. However, after returning to safe mainland, i got to estimate the damage suffered: among other valuable like money, which seem water resistant (lay them out on stright sun and they will be accepted again); my Samsung Galaxy SII remained black - even the screen - with no signs of life within.

I already knew that any wet electronic device should be first dried up before trying to boot up. And as well that the battery should not be exposed to excessive temperatures as described in this article by ars technica. So into raw parts disassembled phone was put aside to recover from the unintended dive.

Unfortunately, even several hours of laying in my car parked under the trees, did not convince my dear digital friend to boot up. (To find out what fatal mistake did I made, read further...)

Now popped up the biggest fear: What if all my data go lost ?!

This tutorial provides detailed and highly practical "after immersion" tips!

•  The main idea here is to dry the device extensively 
•  before finally trying to boot it up!

However, it might be unevitable to disassemble your phone to a greater extent in order to brush away any potencial corosion and to dispose of any external particles, which might have penetrated the electronic core during the bath. An illustrated step-by-step guide for Galaxy S2 smartphone - originally for screen replacement, but still adequate for accessing device's core.

! Before trying to self-dismantling in hope for repairing your device, make sure its legal warranty already expired. In such a case, simply contact customer service hotline of your vendor or telecom operator for help.

For tech types, on Youtube are several instuctional videos to find. Here is a how-to video from ModificationsUK with tutorial for repair of Galaxy S2 model. However, in this case I trust the profis with essential technical equipment  ( like this Phillips screwdriver ) and experience to do the job for me :) 

To prevent such a catastrophe to happen, there are some practical hardware precautions:

1/ wear a protective (ruberized) case - cos in my case, there was no case at all - few weeks before it gave up its service. May have slight water-repellent impact. Protect mainly against the physical impact 

2/ put any electronic gadget in a waterproof caseor sealable plastic bag - comes really handy for all water sports enthousiasts. 

In my opinion, it's much wiser to back up regularly:

Move as many apps and databases to external flash memory as possible - or at least its databases for easier access from other device. ( A how-to blogpost for somehow more programatically savvy enthousiasts). Personally I use long-term plugged-in external microSDHC card in combination with additional OTG cable to relocate larger amounts of data that are not frequently in use (movies, private videos; databases)

Back-up data into cloud regularly - sometimes even a week is a long period with  the masses of data we collect and potencially care about. However, if governmental online surveilance is not a issue for you, then any free cloud service like Google Drive, Dropbox... does the job.

Alternative solution might be encrypted cloud solutions - usually paid option poses as more trustworthy than the "free" one. (If we take into account that there is no free lunch...)

One solution for outdoor freak like me may be a splash water and dust resistant model like Samsung S4 or Sony ZR - if your budget allows you to choose...

To pass you a positive message: after 2 days of despair, I gave it a last try ...
and it worked - I practice now everthing I wrote here.

Good luck with any water activity