A Water-Damaged iPhone and a Freeze Dryer: One Customer’s Unusual Experiment

Freeze dryers are designed to remove moisture from food and other appropriate materials under vacuum. Over the years, however, Harvest Right owners have occasionally experimented with some unexpected items.

One of the more unusual stories we've received involved a water-damaged iPhone.

This story originally came to Harvest Right in 2015. We're sharing it as an interesting customer experience—not as instructions for drying electronics in a home freeze dryer.

Important: Harvest Right home freeze dryers are not designed or recommended for drying phones or other battery-powered electronics. Do not place lithium-ion batteries or electronic devices in a freeze dryer. This article describes a historical customer experiment and should not be treated as a procedure or recommendation.

An iPhone Full of Water

According to the original story, Tom and Sharon Clark contacted a Harvest Right employee after Sharon's iPhone had accidentally been immersed in water.

It wasn't just a quick splash.

Sharon didn't discover the phone immediately, and by the time she found it, there was enough water inside that she could hear it moving when she shook the phone.

She took the damaged phone to a local phone store, where she was told there was little hope of recovering it.

She then tried putting the phone in rice, a commonly suggested home remedy at the time. After several days, the phone still wouldn't work.

The Bigger Concern Was What Was on the Phone

The loss of the device itself wasn't Sharon's biggest concern.

Her phone contained photographs of her children and grandchildren, along with phone numbers, addresses, and other information she hadn't backed up.

Today, automatic cloud backups make this type of situation easier to avoid, but in 2015 that wasn't necessarily how everyone used their phones.

After returning from a vacation, Sharon told her neighbor Tim about what had happened.

Tim was an electrical engineer—and he also owned a Harvest Right freeze dryer.

He had an unusual idea.

An Experiment With the Freeze Dryer

With the phone already considered unlikely to be recoverable, Tim asked Sharon if he could try an experiment.

According to the original account, he placed the phone in his freeze dryer, skipped the initial freezing portion of the process, and operated the machine for a couple of hours.

When he returned the phone, the obvious water inside was gone.

Sharon charged it and tried turning it on.

It powered up.

Even more surprisingly, according to the Clarks, the phone was still functioning normally two months later when Harvest Right originally published their story.

Why This Story Is Interesting

Freeze drying works by removing moisture under vacuum. That's what makes a freeze dryer so useful for preserving foods such as fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, complete meals, and many other foods.

But this story also illustrates just how powerful moisture removal under vacuum can be.

It doesn't mean a home freeze dryer should be used to repair electronics, however.

Modern phones contain lithium-ion batteries and sensitive electronic components. Batteries can present serious hazards if damaged, punctured, overheated, exposed to inappropriate pressures, or otherwise handled outside their intended operating conditions.

For that reason, this story should remain exactly what it was:

an interesting experiment performed by an electrical engineer—not a freeze-dryer use we recommend reproducing.

What Should You Do With a Water-Damaged Phone?

If a phone or other electronic device gets wet, follow the device manufacturer's current instructions.

Generally, that means turning the device off when appropriate, avoiding unnecessary charging or operation while moisture may still be present, and seeking assistance from the manufacturer or a qualified electronics repair professional.

For irreplaceable photos and information, the better solution is prevention: maintain regular backups so the data isn't dependent on a single physical device.

The Real Lesson: Moisture Removal Is Powerful

The Clarks' story has remained memorable because it was such an unexpected use of freeze-drying technology.

But the same fundamental capability—removing moisture under vacuum—is much more useful when applied to what Harvest Right home freeze dryers are designed to do: preserve food.

A home freeze dryer can help preserve garden harvests, leftovers, complete meals, fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, snacks, and other appropriate foods for future use.

And unlike rescuing an iPhone, those are experiments we'd encourage you to try.