When cell phones get wet, their owners see red

A typically icky day for Russell Galindl begins with dried sweat, urine and melted snow, each of which he regularly finds inside faulty cell phones. As an independent phone repairer, he receives 20 broken handsets by mail in a busy week, along with tearful or embarrassed calls from the phone owners begging him to find out what is wrong.

Galindl specializes in diagnosing liquid damage. He pries open the handset, smears away the gunk and inspects the battery and circuit board for signs of water.

But his task has become considerably easier. In the last two years, cell phone manufacturers have introduced a piece of simple technology hidden behind the phone battery: a paper dot, no larger than a push-pin head, that turns red on contact with liquid.

“The moment I see that dot, I know it got wet,” Galindl said. And for most customers, that red dot means the end of the conversation: A phone manufacturer will not fix or replace a phone under warranty if it gets wet.

Most customers do not know about the dot--many who do know point out that between perspiration and condensation, moisture can get to a phone accidentally. In 2004, the cell phone maker Siemens found that rain was the third most likely cause of a cell phone’s demise. (Snow came in 10th.) But while U.S. companies quickly adopted the water indicator, some customers say the dots, like the phones themselves, are too sensitive for the real world.

When Dave Head's Motorola T720 broke in 2004, he sent it for repair. A brusque note came back: “Customer Abuse: Liquid Damage.” When Head protested, Motorola explained that several electronic parts were corroded, a sign of water inside the handset.

But Head called foul. “It failed under normal use,” he wrote on an Internet cell phone forum. “I don't believe it ever got really wet--I don't ever remember talking on it in the rain.”

He did used to wear his phone on the belt clip that came with it, in the humidity of Virginia. And his warranty excludes damage from water, dust or vapor. But he fumed, “This is planet Earth.”

The companies do not spend time working out how wet a phone can get. “Phones are just not waterproof,” said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Cingular.

The company, he said, does not report how many waterlogged phones it receives annually from its 54 million customers. They are simply returned to their owners, who have to pay for new phones. A handset, unless deeply discounted when bought with a plan, retails for $150 and up.

Motorola introduced the dot technology in 2003, in its V300. Other companies have followed suit. The latest move is to affix dots to the cell phone batteries, detecting lethal liquid there too.

“Those dots are a real clever idea on the companies’ part,” Galindl said, adding that they have streamlined the phones' repair service and cut costs. “It saves them time. One comes in, they’re not obliged to fix it.”

Galindl’s business has been built on defying the red dot. “Oh yes, I’ve been able to fix those [phones] 50 percent of the time,” he said.

On his Web site, FastCPR.com, he recommends that people send their phones directly to him--in effect, not to bother approaching the big manufacturers. “It’s not that they can’t be fixed,” he said, “it’s that the companies choose not to.”

Dropping a phone in a toilet is one of the most common ways a phone gets wet, and Galindl points out, “You can’t then complain about Motorola.”

The same goes for using the phone against freshly washed hair, which floods the earpiece. But he says that 20 percent of his customers, who pay $44.95 for ultrasonic cleaning and repair work, have done nothing worse than getting caught in a storm.

“I hear, ‘Snow melted on the phone,’” he said. “Or ‘It was at the bottom of a grocery bag during a rainstorm.’”

Phones that are designed to be waterproof tend to be for military and industrial use and are not lightweight. Luggage companies have stepped in, making cell phone cases that cover the vulnerable earpiece and power port.

Galindl believes that despite the occasional mishap, cell phone technology is worth the price. But speedy manufacturing shows, he said. “They put just about enough solder on them to get them down the assembly line,” he said.

That’s unacceptable, said Head. “A portable phone that costs $462 across the counter at Radio Shack should be about as susceptible to water as my $50 Timex Ironman wristwatch I've had for about five or six years,” he wrote on the cell phone forum. The phone lasted just six months.

Among groups that work with cell phones, there has been rising frustration. Bicycle couriers, who cover hundreds of miles every week in all kinds of weather, wrap handsets in plastic bags, while others, like Jillian Corbett in Madison, Wis., make carrying cases out of duffel-bag canvas.

Some bike messengers, in online discussions, say they have turned their backs on mobile phones, preferring two-way radios. As one cell phone forum participant, known only as Buffalo Bill, wrote on dcmessenger.com, “Cell phones are for Muppets.”

Galindl has rebuffed pleas to replace the red dots with white ones. “I won’t do that,” he said. But requests for his services keep rolling in from those whose phones have seen red.

“In the winter, it’s mostly East Coast customers in the snow,” Galindl said. “By March, I’m praying for the spring break kids.”

E-mail: jf2274@columbia.edu