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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

I've had several CAT phones. I have two S41 phones right now. Their biggest weakness is the little rubber covers over the ports. Those are the first to go. They need a better solution to that problem. Wireless charging, at least.

Also, I've had two of them bulge from battery expansion, just from leaving them plugged into power most of the time. Battery repair has several week turnaround, which is why I ended up with two of them, one back from repair, unused in its box.

Plus, putting silver in the case rubber to "avoid infection" is just silly.

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> Plus, putting silver in the case rubber to "avoid infection" is just silly.

Pattern matching on silver+rubber+infection, I think this might be intended to prevent 'infection' of the rubber (by rubber-eating bacteria). I can't find a citation offhand, though.

Same reason you’d wear silver underwear. It’s not for the benefit of the underwear.

Has anyone tested a 'submersible phone' (whatever water-proofing level that may be... and wireless charging whilst submerged?

Linus Tech Tips challenge accepted

A good litmus may be: get a phone to a certain level of depletion of batt

Get (2) phones' batts to same level.

Place each on a charged, but one submerged, one not.

Time to 100% ==?? Measure this multiple times/multiple device types

Build a table of "underwater charging rating of xFactor..."

"Place each on a charged, but one submerged, one not"

Unless the connector is waterproof ( i doubt it) , don't try this at home. Water is a good conductor.

And make sure to plug it into your bathroom outlet for the fault protection!

Which only makes sense because how else would you test this beside sitting in the bath with a stopwatch?

Try sitting in tub with a toaster?

DC plus water equals electrocorrosion[1] if the pins are in contact with water. USB 5 Volts is easily enough to corrode most electronics - certainly made a huge mess of one phone I owned that got dunked while charging.

[1] electrocorrosion isn’t used much as a word, but it should be. Google electrolytic corrosion, direct current corrosion, stray current corrosion.

[null] https://knowledge.electrochem.org/encycl/art-c06-cathodic.ht...

> electrocorrosion

Isn't that just galvanic corrosion?

Galvanic is two dissimilar metals, usually with an electrolyte like wet soil or water. One metal will corrode far faster than the other e.g. zinc sacrificial anode will corrode to protect iron.

Corrosion due to electric currents is different. A few Volts in reverse and you could make iron the anode to corrode and protect a zinc cathode (Cathode and Anode depend on current direction, e.g. they swap when charging a battery).

Two parts made of the same metal can be can be corroded with an electrolyte between them, with low AC or DC voltage driving differences.

Connector? This is about wireless charging.

If you're worried about the wire to the charger itself, I'm sure they've thought of that if the charger is submersible. (Do any of those exist? I'm only finding a splash-resistant one.) And if the charger isn't submersible it'll be outside the bucket and the cable will be fine.

I do see some wireless charging waterproof battery banks. No cable needed for that.

My S10e has been in the Gulf of Mexico, several feet down for a few minutes at a time, more times than I can count. I boat and fish extensively, and the phone hitches a ride in my pocket pretty frequently. Two years later, it's still going strong.

Obviously not quite a phone but would the Apple Watch count? Says the Series 7 can go down to 50 meters.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205000

Oh but you can’t use the touchscreen in water.

WetWare is Harder than Software.

I have an S41 missing its USB cover too, and have always wondered if it's still splash or water proof without it. I did find a picture of a replacement port online, and it looks like that part has a rubber seal which seems promising.

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