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iPhone's Liquid Sensors Can Be Triggered By Wintertime Use
An anonymous reader writes "The Polish website Moje Jabluszko ran an experiment that proves the poor reliability of the liquid contact indicators (original, in Polish) installed by Apple in the iPhone. They performed three different tests to challenge the LCIs, which they recorded as a movie. They decided to mimic regular usage of the iPhone — meaning, you go outside where it could be cold or warm, then move inside in a building where temperature might be dramatically different, but still within covered conditions. So, they placed the iPhone in its box for one hour outside at -11 C, then moved it inside at room temperature for 24 hours. They repeated the experiment 3 times, and after the third cycle they could show that the LCI located in the audio jack plug started turning red! This is a clear proof that LCIs are not reliable and could turn red while the iPhone has been used under the defined environmental requirements defined by Apple. Here, only the condensing water could have been in contact with the sensor. In other words, even moving in and out during regular winter time will make you iPhone LCI turn red!" (In the tech specs for the iPhone, Apple rates the non-operating temperature range as -20 to 45 C.)
As anyone who wears glasses could probably tell you, if you go outside for a while, then come back inside (mimic the conditions of the 'experiment'), the glasses are highly likely to fog up with condensation. Is this not a liquid?
Sounds to me like the sensors are working just fine.
No they aren't working properly.
The Apple warranty http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/02/20/0118230 on page 2 eliminates warranty claims if the iphone has suffered liquid spills or submersion.
Yet the sensors trip via simple humidity changes, not unlike those the phone would experience in daily use in northern climates.
The sensors are essentially exposed to the outside of the phone, one in the ear-phone jack, and another in the 30 pin connector.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You can get condensation without exceeding the relative humidity limit (incidentally what other computer has a humidity limit?). Just put a very cold iPod in a warm pants pocket. As long as the iPod is colder than the dew point, then you get condensation.
> This just means they need more separation between the electrodes of their submersion sensor. Which is a problem in a small device.
The sensor is a chemical one. It's a patch of off-white printing that turns red when wetted.
> To sense water reliably, while ignoring condensation
Why? Condensation IS water. Water affects electronicsin the real world. Water is generally bad for electronics in the real world. Very very tiny electronics (like you referred to indirectly above) are affected even more. The touchscreen insides, the speakers, any electrical contacts, the miniscule contacts in the dock connector, all of it can be affected by water.
According to some of the other posts on here, it seems like Apple has already covered this in the warranty agreement by specifying that the phone shouldn't be used in humid air where water can condensate.
Lame, sure, but hardly a conspiracy.
From the Nokia N900 user's guide:
Do not store the device in high or cold temperatyre. High temperatures can shorten the life of electronic devices, damage batteries, and warp or melt certain plastics. When the device warms to its normal temperature from a cold temperature, moisture can form inside the device and damage electronic circuit boards.
Avoid extreme temperatures. Always try to keep the battery between 59F and 77F (15C and 25C). Extreme temperatures reduce the capacity and lifetime of the battery. A device with a hot or cold battery may not work temporarily. Battery performance is particularly limited in temperatures well below freezing.
Perhaps Finnish winters aren't as frigid as I was led to believe.
The sensor trips, even if the phone is not being operated (e.g. it's powered off) when these conditions are encountered.
I went into an Apple store and got my original iPhone replaced 10 months after buying it because I dropped it two stories onto concrete. It still worked, but it wouldn't take a charge and the main button was constantly pressed. I admitted to the damage vector (it was a bit hard not too -- major scratches and dings on the aluminum). They tested my phone, verified that it wouldn't take a charge, wiped my current phone, swapped the SIM into a new phone, activated it, and sent me on my way.
Those eeeevil bastards.
As someone who repairs electronic devices often debugging the device using a can of freeze spray I can confidently say that sensitive electronics will happily keep running with not just condensing mist forming on the surface, but out right water droplets, providing these don't combine and start running down the device.
Water on electronics isn't an issue till it connects across adjacent electrical traces. Even then water that is caused by condensation is very pure and has an incredibly high resistance so even if it does start running down the circuit board of the phone doesn't mean the phone is instantly dead.
You can bet your warranty that all this will set off the LCI though.
I was about to mod you down, but I guess I should educate instead:
Depending on your source, and whether or not the water is highly chlorinated, it can be pretty non-conductive. A couple of examples of this:
The town I used to live in got its water from a reservoir. They lightly chlorinated it, and then pumped it around town. I had a few accidents involving beer/soda and electronics, but in all cases, immediately unplugging the power/battery, disassembling, rinsing well with tap water, and letting dry for a couple days, the electronics worked fine. I had a keyboard with soda inside the membrane, and 8 years later it still works.
I taught high school science for 5 years, and we had a fairly simple conductivity tester - a lightbulb with the circuit broken. The setup had a goose-neck, with two exposed probes. You plugged it into a standard 120V outlet, and when the two probes, about 1/2" apart, were dunked in a conducting solution, the light bulb lit up. Standard tap water in that town did NOT light it up. Add 0.1g of salt to 100ml of water, and it light up just fine.
It's true that pure water won't hurt electronics. And condensed water is likely to be damn pure. Yes, it disassociates into ions. But the concentration is so small, and the distance between the ions so large, that it's essentially non-conducting.
It's sad you got modded up for not knowing what you're talking about.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor