I got a new phone this past Saturday. Saturday evening, I spent a good 1.5 hours transferring all my pictures and apps over (yes… I have a lot). 😉 All was great!

The next day, I was carrying my son’s very full laundry hamper downstairs to the laundry room. I set my 16 hour-old iPhone 17 on top of the hamper of clothes as I walked down the stairs. Do you see where this is going? Yep, without using my brain, I dumped the contents of his hamper into the washing machine, put in the detergent, and hit start.

About 20 minutes later (!!) I am looking for my phone. All of a sudden, it hit me… I ran super fast to the washing machine, opened it up, and found my brand new phone spinning at the bottom of the washing machine. The screen was still on, and it looked to be in fine shape… just wet!

One thing to mention is that the iPhone 17 is water-resistant, not waterproof. It is rated IP68, which means it can reach a maximum depth of 6 meters (~19 feet!) for 30 minutes. Mine was in about 2 feet of water for 20 minutes, so I had a smidgeon of hope after I got it out of the washer yesterday.

Spoiler alert- 24+ hours later, it is working like normal. I am shocked. Let me tell you what I did, in case you are in the same situation!

I immediately turned off my phone, removed my phone case, wiped the phone down, and put it in a ziplock bag of rice. Now, many people don’t recommend putting iPhones in a bag of rice, because the individual rice can get up into the charging port. I still did it, as I was totally panicked, and when I pulled it out later, there was a piece of rice stuck snuggly into the port. ha! Luckily, it came right out. Just keep that in mind, that it’s not really recommended, but I did it anyways.

After a couple of hours, I propped my phone up so that it was angled so the port was aimed down to try to force any water out, and I put it under a ceiling fan. I also left the case by it, so it could dry out completely. My phone was still off at this point.

After a few hours, I turned it on and everything was working. Holy cow. However, when I played a podcast, the speakers sounded super staticky. I also made a phone call and the person on the other end sounded like the people in Charlie Brown- wah wahhh, wah waaaahh. I looked up information on that, and it’s a very normal thing to happen when your phone has water damage. The speakers are found down by the port, where the water gets into the phone.

One recommended thing, that I had never heard of before, was a certain sound that is supposed to expel water out of speakers when played. I thought it was fake, but doing research showed me that there is an app that actually does do this. It had 22K 5 star ratings, so I went for it! It’s called Sonic and it looks like this:

You have to pay, but I did a 3 day trial for free that I can (and will) cancel before I’m charged for it. You click on “water expel” at the bottom and then click “play”. It will play sounds that aren’t too far off from late-90s internet dial-up sounds. 😉 I played this a bunch of times, and- I can’t believe it- my speakers sound almost normal! I would say it’s 95% better. Talking to others on the phone is now normal, and my podcasts are normal, too!

I’m hoping this stays and that there’s not any residual damage. I have not plugged my phone in yet to charge, I have used the chargers that you rest the phone on. I may give it another day or two before I plug it in.

I share this to tell you to not panic if your phone gets submerged in water! It may not be the same as mine, but hopefully yours also won’t be submerged for 20 minutes like mine was. I can’t believe my phone is actually okay!