Does one of the LG cellphone batteries have a sensor on it to cause cellphone failure after the first touch of water? Even though no significant amount of water has penetrated the actual battery or cellphone itself. That’s what Tim wonders after conducting a little experiment and paper hack following dropping his cell phone into a tiny bit of coffee.
I recently dropped my cell phone into the last sip of coffee I had in my cup, so I know the liquid didn’t penetrate to any meaningful hardware, especially considering I plucked it out immediately. Stickers, on both the inside of the battery casing (on the phone) and the battery itself, were pink/red when I opened the battery cover, however, very little moisture was present. 5 minutes later my phone turned itself off and I wasn’t able to turn it back on until I plugged it into my charger at the end of the day. The phone blinked the ‘Charge Complete’ signal to me almost immediately, but when I unplugged it from the charger it immediately turned off again and I wasn’t able to turn it on without it being plugged into the charger.Here’s where the super-sketchiness comes into play. I noticed that the pink sticker on the battery was covering an indented rectangular area, so I pulled off the sticker which revealed two small brass sensors. When I cut out and installed a plain piece of white paper to replace the color changed sticker, the phone miraculously began taking a charge again and when I unplugged it from the charger, it didn’t turn off.
This seems like something that would create a lot of unnecessary consumer battery purchases and therefore sales for LG (the manufacturer of the phone and the battery) while at the same time serving to void warranties for few, if any, legitimate, consumer caused issues. These phone companies take advantage of water exposure by attributing future glitches to water damage whether water is the cause or not. It is also my opinion that they have gone so far as to implement ‘water activated failure mechanisms’ into phones and batteries in an effort to create replacement sales for products that aren’t really damaged. As my example illustrates, the removal of the failure mechanism (the pink sticker on the battery) restored the phone and battery to its pre-coffee state . . . What a scam!
That’s very interesting, can you supply photos of the paper and sensors?
Ben,Your reply prompted the attached pictures and an additional test. Upon insertion of the white paper rectangle, the phone recognized the battery as not being fully charged and began charging when plugged in. After a full charge was again realized I tried two more things with the same result:
1. I removed the white paper rectangle so that no barrier existed between the ‘sensors’ and the phone.
2. I replaced the pink/red rectangle between the sensors and the phone.Both resulted in full functionality when I disconnected the phone from the charger. I’m sure you can hypothesize as well as I can as to the possible scenarios here. What I can tell you for sure is that I removed the phone from the charger after seeing the ‘Charge Complete’ message at least four times with the same result . . . immediate shut off. I then removed the pink/red rectangle, replaced it with the white paper rectangle, plugged it back in, started receiving a charge, waited 5 minutes, unplugged it, and it did not shut off.
I have ordered another battery and will check the original color of the pink/red rectangle when I receive it.
Is this a safety feature, a product designed to fail, or something else entirely?
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What so many commenters immediately call a rip-off, the corporate folk, and any number engineers, will call a safety feature. Better to replace a relatively cheap battery than pass current through to the phone from an unreliable battery. Removing the moisture dot may make it work properly, but it’s an “at your own risk” choice.
hey I just opened my phone (Sony Ericsson Z525 on AT&T) There is a dot on the battery. But the other dot just happens to be at the imprint where one would put their thumb to remove/insert the SIM card.
Sneaky…
I, for one, welcome our moisture-averse overlords!
I’ve had the same LG phone for 4 years.
@SNWBRDER0721
At four or five years old it possibly didn’t have a Lithium battery, removing the need for super-sensitive safety features.
Boy, this place really assumes a mob mentality sometimes! Totally entertaining, if not completely uninformed.
@Applekid: Of course youre brilliant. Why all they have to do is make it entirely water proof making sure +Vcc and Ground can never be compromised from outside the phone. A fully waterproof and vapor/ humidity proof device.
Why didn’t they think of it. Oh yeah cost, because it would cost s small fortune for such a device. I guess not everyone would have a cell phone then.
Ok well lets protect Joe average from shorting out their battery and causing an explosion. Provide an extra set of terminals on the battery and circuitry much like a GFI circuit to i9nterrupt power at the slightest sign of a short since a lithium explosion can be quite nasty and a lithium fire needs special chemicals to put out or has to burn itself out. ( ref: [en.wikipedia.org] ) this is why the FAA limits lithium battery cell size to 25 grams or less on passenger planes. ( ref: [hazmat.dot.gov] ).
Basically you are paying for safety and much like an airbag that goes off at 5mph, your cell phone battery will go off when wet. Can you bypass this, sure, there are ways to waterproof terminals, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you want to hurt yourself.
I’d like to echo the electrical engineer’s concerns. If fairly conductive liquid (soup, say) caused a short between the two main terminals on the battery, it could esplode, so having a moisture sensor that killed it would be good.
I’m not sure what sticking a new bit of paper on would do that removing the original wet bit of paper didn’t, mind you. Dry paper and air are about as conductive.
How much more could it really cost to make all cell phones and remote controls waterproof? Of course they won’t do it though. Would I pay a little extra for a waterproof product? Yes. Do they care? No. They would rather force you to buy a whole new product. It’s the same reason CDs and DVDs don’t come in cases like floppy discs.
i just did a science experiment.
i pulled out my phone, which lives in my sweaty pocket, right next to my sweaty crotch… and the “magic” sticker is pink. i guess this means the warranty is void…
so i figured, what the hell. let’s pull off the sticker, look at the battery, etc. and discovered a few things…
1. the sticker is not conductive.
2. licking the sticker to see if it turns even “pinker” does nothing
3. the design of the sticker and the hole above the contacts seems to act as an absorbant/holder/attractant using something akin to capillary action, (I’m not a licensed engineer… and my last physics class was years ago, please excuse my terminology here) that keeps a bit of water suspended above the contacts.. thus shorting out your battery
And then i pulled out the wife’s phone (which lives in her purse, never near water, etc) and her indicator is also pink. did i mention that the phone is less than a month old?
i guess her warranty is null and void too.
I’m happy to find that the battery in my AT&T Sony phone has such a sticker.
Liquids with minerals (e.g. saltwater) can shortcircuit batteries and cause them to explode or catch fire if current flows. The dot stops dat.
Applying power to a wet phone can damage that phone by causing oxidation and/or component overloads. The dot stops dat.
Replacing the battery is so much cheaper than replacing the phone. And the workaround of removing the dot is even easier dan dat.
@suburbancowboy: Aaaand fat fingered clumsy folks like yourself are why we have these “stickers” in the first place.
I’m always shocked at how so many of my friends manhandle their cell phones, CDs, and DVDs. Seriously, you’re complaining about the durability of DVDs and CDs? Yeah, I know laser rot happens in some brands, but come on. I have CDs from 1986 that play just fine. What are you doing with your CDs that would require them to be encased in an annoying caddy, a la a 3.5 floppy or the old DVD-RAM?
Anyways, as much as people love to yell conspiracy theory on here, it’s not. Consumerist has had articles about exploding batteries, right? Well, what do you want? A safe battery, or a cheap battery that will survive a dunk?
Lithium Ion cells EXPLODE VIOLENTLY when shorted. If anything, the LG battery is a GOOD design because it apparently reactivated after it dried (I don’t think it had much to do with the paper – other than the fact that you took the moist indicator off, thereby exposing the contacts to air, and opening the short.)
Plenty of cells use one-time fuses that simply open when shorted, never to close again.
And to all of you saying “how much can it cost” to make something “waterproof”.. The answer is, a lot. Take a look at the price differences between Garmin’s GPS handhelds, which are IPX7 certified, compared to those that are not. Rubber seals, if the very least required to obtain waterproofing, bulk up devices and require tension to keep a tight seal – tension that will make your RAZR’s battery door pop right off.
Here’s a tip. Don’t drop your cell phones, keep them dry. They’re electronic devices, and you can’t change the fact that electricity and water never should mix. Lithium Ion batteries, while currently the most efficient consumer-available battery tech as far as wh/gm goes – are very volatile. These fuses, which the OP is alleging are “consumer unfriendly conspiratorial sensors”, are the difference between the safe OEM batteries and the chinese pocket-bombs we’ve all grown to know so well through Dell and Sony’s travails.
@grrrarrrg: Several of these stickers begin pink, due to the pattern on them or the backnig beneath them – and will turn a deep red when submersed. Sometimes, they don’t trip instantly.
Licking the sticker, and getting your tongue near the battery – is necessarily a bad idea all around.
This material can be freely bought, BTW. I believe you can get it at Digi-Key. They all react in different ways, so just because yours is pink, doesn’t mean it’s triggered. Generally, dark red or bright red = triggered.
My phone got wet, it’s an LG v5400, and after replacing the indicator with a peice of plain, white paper, it works fine. Crazy, eh?
My LG battery (same as one pictured above) for my Verizon phone started to have a shortened life, and I guessed it was because I had recently dropped it (not in or near water), and the battery fell out. The white strip was a little pink, so my son, who has the same phone, and whose battery strip is still white, said I probably got it damp. I went to purchase a new battery at the Verizon store, and the guy told me it looked like it got damp as I suspected. While I was in the parking lot of another store about an hour later, I looked at the battery (still in the plastic see-thru box) and saw that that damp indicator strip was equally pink. I then noticed that the box it came in was not sealed –and easily openable, and therefore could be exposed to air. (Or worse–could allow Verizon to put someone’s old battery in it, without anyone knowing it.) I brought it back, and they tried to tell me that all their batteries had a pink strip, when new, but got darker pink when damp. Sounded fishy–since the same guy told me something different earlier that same day! So look carefully at the batteries before you buy them, and ask the Verizon store why the LG battery packages are not sealed. I took it back–my old one still charges up for a day. I’ll look elsewhere for a new one.
Anyone else with this experience? JW
I think you’re all overreacting. It looks to me like the two points on the battery are connected BY water. So when the thing dries out or when you dry it out it should be fine. This seems like a pretty darn smart safety feature (though I’d hope they would notify or even ADVERTISE such a good feature, that part is a bit shady.)
here’s the scenario i see this being great for:
a phone falls into water, the ocean, a lake, a pool, whathaveyou.
the owner, having their nifty lg phone with “watersafe” battery simply disassembles the casing and sits all the parts out (or even puts them in rice for quicker dry time). 3 days later all of the parts are dry and voila, the phone works.
had the phone been your average phone and a current had continued running through it from the battery after it falling into water, things would have short circuited all over. the phone would have been useless.
in my opinion the worst this thing does is makes a moron buy a battery. a moron being someone who didn’t google it or check their manual before buying a new battery. if you don’t have any evidence of LG voiding warranties over this, I wouldn’t accuse them. I’m certainly not an LG fanboy by any means, i just think this doesn’t add up.
there could be a reason for this. computer components are fine when submerged in water. some can withstand being completely drenched and retain their ability to function as long as the submerged board does not have a current running through it at the time. a current would result in short circuiting the board or other damage. as long as the device is thoroughly dried before power is returned to it there should be no problem with the functionality of the phone.
this goes to show that the idea of a battery that powers off instantly at the sign of water would be an excellent idea in deed. it can then protect the device from even more costly repairs or damage that would total the cost of the phone completely.