Whether it's a swimming pool, a puddle, even the toilet, dropping your phone in water usually spells certain death for the device. But new technology you can find in some local HEB stores claims to dry your smartphone in minutes.
It's called DryBox Rescue. It's a self-contained kiosk that gives consumers another option for resuscitating wet phones. It costs $34.95 plus tax whether it fixes your phone or not. There are no guarantees; but the company says it has a 70% success rate restoring phones if they are put into the DryBox within 24 hours of getting wet.
You just swipe your credit card, put your phone inside the machine's chamber and hope for the best. The drying process takes approximately 30 minutes. You can wait or leave. DryBox will email you when your phone is ready; and it will only release your phone when the same credit card is swiped.
To test DryBox, we staged a tragic accident. We dropped a Samsung Galaxy 3 into a fish bowl filled with water (and no fish). When we were sure it was good and waterlogged, we put it in a DryBox kiosk. Thirty minutes later, when we retrieved our phone, the screen had a message that read, "Downloading. Do not turn off target." It wasn't immediately clear if the phone worked or not. After letting the device charge for several hours, it seemed good as new. We could make phone calls and take pictures. Our older pictures were still on the phone too. Unfortunately, the next day, the phone stopped working again.
Our damage seemed too catastrophic; but we should note that we let our test phone sit in that fish bowl underwater for several minutes and dunked it a few times because it kept working. We needed to make sure it was damaged so we could test the DryBox. When you drop your phone in water, you will likely immediately get it out. And DryBox Rescue says when your phone gets wet, if you want to use their kiosk, you should not try to power on the device. Do not charge it and do not put it in rice. Get to a DryBox machine within 24 hours.
There are 10 DryBox Rescue machines inside HEB stores from The Woodlands to Friendswood, Katy, Sugar Land & Cypress. Find a machine near you here.
