Dropping your phone into a fluid-carrying vessel, whether that be a swimming pool, a pond, or a (hopefully otherwise empty) toilet, is a profoundly irritating event, and one that many phones tend not to return intact from. There are normally two options at this point: sticking your phone in some rice, which can suck out the water, or swearing profusely and sulking.
According to phone company Gazelle, there is a third option, so long as you own a cat or kitten. No, despite their smarts, your feline companions themselves won’t be able to help you – in fact, they probably don’t care about your technological predicament. As it turns out, a specific type of cat litter is more effective at saving your phone from a watery death than rice.
In a post entitled “The Truth About Rice, the Galaxy and Everything,” which definitely oversells itself, Gazelle explains how its dedicated team of phone revivers purposefully drowned nine unfortunate smartphones before attempting to resurrect each one via different methods, including rice, instant oatmeal, pearly couscous, regular cat litter, and crystal kitty litter – the last of which is silica gel, the dehydrating agent found in little packets inside many electronics packages.
The company recommends that you shake as much of the water out of your phone first, allowing it to briefly air dry, then place it in a bag of crystal cat litter for as long as possible. They suggest that it takes several days for this to work, so the wait promises to be nail-biting.
If, however, your phone still isn’t operational 48 to 72 hours after the clumsiness occurred, then you may want to buy yourself a new phone.
[H/T: Metro]
