Should You Put a Wet Phone in Rice? The Truth

The rice advice is famous — and mostly wrong. Rice does absorb water, but slowly, and only the water it can reach through the air. Meanwhile, rice dust and starch can get into your ports and speaker grille. Phone makers themselves now advise against it.

What actually works better

1. Airflow: a fan pointed at the phone dries it faster than a bowl of rice.
2. Time: leave the phone off and drying for several hours, speaker and port facing down.
3. Silica gel packets (the little bags from shoe boxes) if you have them — they absorb far better than rice and make no dust.
4. Sound: run Water Eject to push water out of the speaker — rice can never do this part.

So is rice useless?

Not useless — just the weakest option, and a risky one for the speaker and port. If rice is truly all you have, it is better than nothing for the inside of the phone. Just keep it away from the speaker side, and clean the grille with the Dust Clean tool afterwards.

Keep reading

• Speaker Cleaner App vs Website: Why You Don't Need the App
• Xiaomi's Built-In Speaker Cleaner vs an Online Tool