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Protect Data and Smartphones from Summer Heat and Water Damage
- No Data, No Data Recovery Fee
- Water and heat damaged devices
- Phones, drives, cards & SSDs
- Free evaluation, no obligation
How Do You Protect a Phone and Data from Summer Heat and Water?
Keep phones out of direct sun and hot cars; Apple suggests iPhones stay between 32°F and 95°F. Use waterproof devices near pools and the ocean. If a device gets wet, do not turn it on, charge it, shake it or heat-dry it. Contact a recovery lab quickly.
“A hot car dashboard is an oven for electronics. Heat damage is slow and quiet until the day it isn’t.” — Bruce Cullen, founder, eProvided
Summer is the best time to hit the beach. It’s that time of year when we plan our final getaways and family vacations. While you’re relaxing by the pool or taking the family on a day trip, be kind to your data storage devices. File storage devices and smartphones need protection from extreme weather just as much as you do. Let’s discuss some tips to prevent any problems going forward, folks. In case it’s too late, eProvided has you covered. Click for professional data recovery service if something goes wrong.
Sun Fatigue Isn’t Just for Humans
Summer heat can be a huge problem for electronic devices. It can cause drive failures and even data loss due to overheating. For stationary devices, such as servers and computers, make sure they have adequate air conditioning. As processor speeds increase, so do power requirements, which in turn require better cooling, particularly during the hot summer months.
Portable devices face even more peril during the summer. The last thing you want to do is place your cell phone on your car dashboard under the sun and go shopping for two hours. Those brutal rays that leave you with an unpleasant sunburn can give your cell phone a burn like nothing else. If the device exceeds recommended heat limits, it’ll be fried, literally. Keep an eye on these recommendations. For example, Apple suggests that to avoid unwanted damage to iPhones, you prevent temperatures from exceeding 95 degrees Fahrenheit or dropping below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
Be Wary of Water, Mostly Salt Water
It’s no secret that electronics and water just don’t get along without a chaperone. However, there is a silver lining. Today, many storage drives and electronic devices come in waterproof versions. Yes, this includes waterproof cell phones. Use them! Waterproof devices make accidental dunks in the pool or ocean a little less worrisome. The Samsung Galaxy S23 is a good example of a waterproof phone: it can withstand being submerged at a maximum depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes.
If a device isn’t properly waterproofed, water can be deadly. Smartphone salt water damage is managed by us here at eProvided. Cell phones and tablets have multiple openings that are open to water damage. A quick dip into the water is all it takes for your device or smartphone to short circuit or stop working entirely. Salt water is worse than fresh water because the salt keeps corroding the circuit board after the device dries.
On a modern phone, the photos and messages are encrypted with a key held in the phone’s own processor. That is why recovery from a water-damaged phone means cleaning and repairing the original board, or moving the processor and memory together to a donor board, so that the phone can read its own data again. The memory chip on its own is not enough.
| Summer Risks at a Glance | ||
|---|---|---|
| Risk | What It Does | How to Prevent It |
| Direct sun and hot cars | Pushes a phone past its safe temperature range | Keep phones off the dashboard and out of the sun |
| Hot rooms | Overheats servers and computers, causing drive failures | Give stationary devices adequate air conditioning |
| Pools and fresh water | Shorts the circuits through the device’s openings | Use waterproof phones and storage near water |
| Ocean and salt water | Shorts the circuits and keeps corroding the board | Waterproof devices, and fast action if one gets wet |
Safeguarding Smartphones and Data from Heat or Water Damage
Protecting your smartphones and other electronic devices from heat and moisture is crucial for their longevity. The tips below give you practical steps to prevent damage from the elements, and clear guidance for handling an emergency so that you do not cause more harm to your gadgets. Don’t delay: protect your devices from the elements.
- Do not operate or charge a damaged device. If the device is visibly damaged, do not attempt to operate it or charge it. Instead, store it in a safe place until a professional can assess the damage. Definitely do not try to turn it on or plug it in; that’s just asking for trouble. Find a nice, cozy spot for it to chill, and let our tech wizards here at eProvided work our magic.
- Do not shake, open or clean it. Avoid shaking, disassembling or attempting to clean the inside of the device, as improper handling can make the recovery operation more difficult and lead to valuable data loss. Shaking the device can actually move the water around and cause more damage.
- Do not heat-dry it. Do not attempt to dry a water-damaged device by opening it, disassembling it or exposing it to heat. A hairdryer will be much more harmful than helpful. Disassembling it can lead to more problems and make the process even harder. Unless you’re a certified tech wizard, attempting to clean the inside can do more harm than good. So, do yourself a favor and resist the urge to play handyman. Your precious data will thank you!
- Skip recovery software. If the device has suffered physical damage, avoid attempting data retrieval on your own with data recovery software. These programs are designed for a device that is fully functional mechanically. They are like chefs trying to make a gourmet meal with rotten ingredients: it’s just not going to work out.
- Contact a specialist quickly. Contact our trusted data recovery specialists quickly. Explain the damage that has occurred and the conditions surrounding it. Our eProvided specialist will tell you how best to handle and deliver the device. Once we have completed a hands-on inspection, we will recommend the best data retrieval method. So, if your device looks like it’s been through a war, do yourself a favor and get our help.
Never Assume a Device Is a Lost Cause
Remember to never assume that a device is too damaged for successful data recovery. Believe it or not, waterproof devices that malfunctioned after water and sand poured from inside have still had retrievable information. The key is to avoid panic and contact our advanced data recovery company as quickly as possible. Stay calm, reach out to us as soon as possible, and let eProvided work its magic!
Get out there and have fun this summer! Take precautions, and keep a current backup before you head out.
Recovery Services for Every Storage Device Class
Heat and water reach every kind of storage, and the lab covers all of them: professional hard drive data recovery, SSD data recovery for NVMe and SATA drives, USB flash drive data recovery, memory card data recovery, microSD card data recovery including monolithic cards, and NAND flash chip-off recovery.
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Frequently Asked Questions
If a phone does take a swim this summer, read what to do with a wet phone before you try to power it on or charge it.
Get Help with a Wet or Overheated Device
Keep the device off and tell us what happened. We will tell you how to ship it and what can be done. The evaluation is free.
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