With replacement white strip installed
If this isn’t a scam, I can’t imagine what a valid reason for this design could be.
Cellphone Battery Designed To Fail At First Drop Of Water?
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.
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.
40,
IT WASNT 1/2…
It was 1/2 for the politicals..Demos and reps…
Which number 1/3 of the USA…for BOTH sides…
SO, take 1/3 and device it in 1/2, and you find that about 17% voted this person(I know better words) into office.
The rest of us are Pissed off also, and STILL the gov wont do anything…
#36, Dorksters,
What was that, an ad for VZW? =) *lol* Seriously, though, I work in customer service for VZW, and you’re right. But get this: retail on that M-F is roughly $300. Compare that to the BlackBerry I just bought, running at full retail of $400. (For the people who don’t pay attention in class, the BB has WAY more capabilities than the G-zOne.)
Waterproofing phones? Cheap? I’d have to agree with Lauren on this one.
Can you imagine the technological leap we would have to make as a species to make a device such as a phone water resistant. I mean it has a couple of ports and at least 12 buttons on it. I just don’t see how this can be done. The moon landing, deep see exploration, and sending robots to Mars pale in comparison to a water resistant cell phone this would require such things as o-rings and sealed data ports. That is just future stuff we can only dream about now. It just can’t be done, at least with existing technology.
This worked for me too. I verified that it wasn’t just a matter of waiting or removing the pink paper. Attaching a new piece of a selfstick label solves the problem.
Thank you!!!!!!
This worked for me as well – I dropped the phone in the bathtub and after letting it dry out an evening, took off the red strip and replaced it with a white strip and the phone started working again. THANKS!
The moisture strips are a scam. Living in the the South with high moisture everyone’s cell phone turns red. I now have a problem with suncom and my three month old phone. They refuse to talk to me and tell me the phone has fallen in water. I have no way to defend myself other then changing carriers. No one from customer service will return my phone calls. I found out the problem to be the house charge and now the phone works great even though the strip remains red. Figure that out, bye bye Suncom.
I found this dialog after googling “humidity effects on cell phone batteries”! I bought a new Blackberry curve three weeks ago–lo and behold, a week and a half later, it was acting up (changing time/date info randomly, etc). My husband took the battery out of the phone and the tester strip read positive–my cell phone was pregnant!! No, he explained…the strip claims that the phone had been wet. It had NOT seen a single drop of h2o–and although we normally have high humidity here in northern Ohio, it has been fairly dry and we’ve been in a drought for the past month. I was distraught, knowing from friends and family (who are NOT irresponsible and wreckless with their equipment, as some other posts suggest) that Verizon refuses to even speak to you if the strip is red! Sooo, I buy a new battery ($30+)and take it in. They evidently found a problem with the phone itself, because they swapped it out for a new one. Now, here I am about 5 days later, and just out of curiosity, I looked at my battery last night and yep, the strip is bright pink! And NO way, NO how has it been wet! It’s a racket!! As is the insurance for replacing a phone that’s been damaged–you pay $5/month for 2 years and IF you need to make a claim, you must pay a $50 deductible…even if it’s damaged after only 6 months, you’re still looking at a minimum of $80 to replace the phone.
I’m frustrated and very very disgusted by this little red strip…HUMIDITY??? Really??? Shall I never use my phone outside of an air conditioned room again!?
I have a Samsung Gleam that I have had for two weeks. I had to buy it after my Samsung SCH-a990 stopped working. The strip on the a990 had turned pink, so Verizon would not give me a replacement.
Well, for the past two weeks I have been extra careful, encasing my cellphone in a plastic bag inside my pocketbook on rainy days. I have never dropped it in water, nor taken it into a bathroom with the shower going. I looked at the strip tonight, and, wouldn’t you know, it has red dots all over it.
I had an experience where I had 2 cell phone batteries giving me problems. They were both losing power very rapidly. Over one time period I tracked, my battery lost 13% power in thirty minutes! They both had that sticker indicating that they had been wet, though oddly, the strip in my phone did not.
So I peel off the piece of paper on one battery. I do not replace it with anything, just take the original off. I charge it again. Here I am, more than 18 hours later, and my phone still has 39% charge left.
This is clearly a scam and I will be contacting an attorney to try to file a class action lawsuit against these crooks!