This time, it’s a rather sad story for me personally….
Last month, I water-damaged the BlackBerry KEYone I had just purchased for typing long texts while seated on crowded trains….
It didn’t fall into a toilet, it didn’t fall into a puddle, and I didn’t bring it into the bath — yet it still got water-damaged.
To be precise, it was more “water ingress” than “submersion.” It got soaked by rain. Inside my backpack.
After walking for about 10 minutes, my backpack — which had zero waterproofing — ended up completely soaked with rainwater….
My TransBook T304UA was also in the backpack and came out perfectly fine, so I assumed the KEYone would be okay too. Then on the train ride home, I realized the KEYone was done for and nearly burst into tears….
The tweet about it somehow went viral, and I was laughing through my tears.
One silver lining: the water only reached the LCD — it didn’t penetrate the internals….
However, the display looked off, and both the navigation sensor and the touch functionality on the lower half of the screen were dead….
So the situation was at a “just replace the LCD and it should be fixable” level.
I checked AliExpress for KEYone LCD prices and was relieved to find them at around 3,500 yen (roughly $30).
Still, being strapped for cash, I didn’t really want to spend money if I could avoid it, so I decided to try an experiment with silica gel to see if it would actually work.
So I bought silica gel at a drugstore and tossed the phone in.
(I actually wanted calcium chloride since it has higher moisture absorption, but they didn’t have it, so I went with silica gel.)
*Note: Calcium chloride can corrode aluminum, so be careful if you use it. Also, silica gel generates heat in an exothermic reaction when it absorbs water, so handle with care.
After 14 hours, I got curious and checked on it.
Honestly, the water marks on the screen hadn’t changed much, but the navigation sensor and the touch on the lower half of the screen had started working again.
At this point, all that was left was to get the water out from inside the LCD to fully revive it!
Then I left it sitting for another 2 days.
I hadn’t exactly forgotten about the KEYone, but in the meantime my Xiaomi Mi 6 — previously demoted to sub-device of my sub-device — was temporarily promoted back to main duty lol
[Main: iPhone X | Sub: (Main) BlackBerry KEYone / (Sub) Xiaomi Mi 6]
*Yes, I know some of you are thinking “what’s a sub-device of a sub-device?” — it’s exactly what it sounds like. Yes, I’m aware this is excessive.
When I opened the ziplock bag of silica gel to check…
It had completely revived.
I had been prepared to do an LCD replacement, so honestly I was thrilled.
So, the takeaway: the BlackBerry KEYone is likely far more susceptible to water ingress than other smartphones, so if you own one, please be very careful around water.
And if the worst happens and it does get wet, don’t give up — just throw it in some silica gel and leave it for a few days!
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