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Comment by peanut-walrus | Hacker News Reader

I dropped my Pixel in water and since it had previously cracked, it had lost the waterproofing. The water apparently shorted the power button and the screen. That was a fun night when the dead phone woke up and started dialling 112 repeatedly and there was nothing I could do short of smashing the damn thing with a hammer to stop it.

Every electronic device needs to have a physical disconnect for the power supply. It should be considered a severe enough fault to warrant not getting market approval if this is missing.

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I had a similar issue - the glass on the back of my Pixel (5 I think?) cracked right by the power button, and it seemed to be kind of OK but I got a new phone anyway, but left the old one in my glove box of my car where I used it for the bluetooth entry to the parking garage at work (and because re-enrolling was a pain). It didn't have the sim setup or wifi enabled so didn't think much of it.

This worked fine for a few months, just turning it on at the gate then off afterwards and threw it back in the glove compartment.

Until one day driving home I heard a weird beeping, then a voice from the glove box asking what my emergency was. I shouted back pulling over and fumbling to get the phone out, and told the responder my phone had called them by itself. I was a little surprised as I thought every call, even abandoned, had to be followed up on, in case there was coercion? But I guess not if you just blame the phone. I guess the buttons had shorted to turn the phone on, then ended up going into the emergency call? I couldn't even turn it off at that point as the power button refused to work and the digitizer was partially non-functional.

A bit of a pain, and a (hopefully small) waste of an emergency responder's time, but I can see this sort of thing being relatively common - in "normal use" I've had my phone somehow end up on the emergency call menu, just being jostled and unlocked or fat fingering the wrong buttons, so wouldn't be surprised if unneeded emergency calls are relatively common on even fully functional devices.

But I guess that cost is worth paying if it's more convenient and quick when there is an emergency?

I'v heard from my safety volunteer colleague that damaged (or neglected) lithium-ion powered devices should be regarded as malicious fire hazard.

So unless you actively intend to set your own car on fire I urge you to end this habit and send the broken phone to an adapted recycling procedure.

(This is also why unrelatedly to the many pollution issues, throwing lithium-ion into landfill is like setting up a time bomb for our kids)

In Germany it is not possible to call emergency without an active SIM (if it is PIN protected, the PIN has to be entered before). This has been deliberately disabled since February 2009 because there were too many anonymous calls for fun or (how idiotic!) to test if a secondhand phone still works.

That sounds kind of insane; the whole point of being able to call emergency numbers in the UK on a phone without a SIM, and/or without unlocking it, is that it's an emergency.

The solution you describe sounds like a potentially dangerous technical solution to a cultural problem. I don't hear of people phoning 999 in the UK to test a second hand phone works, or for fun.

What happens in the case where the only phone to hand happens to be someone else's and said person is incapacitated, or otherwise incapable of unlocking it?

I guess this is one of the major down sides of battery not being removeable...

Fortunately, it seems the EU will mandate removable batteries by 2027? Caveat: I haven’t done any research into that besides the headline, so YMMV.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/06/22/new-eu-law-to-forc...

It's not going to do something like require phones use clips again to hold the back on and hold the battery inside the housing. Apple's self-service repair program might already qualify.

We do have a useful invention called the screw. With every phone phablet sized nowadays there isn't a valid argument that they don't have room for waterproofed fasteners.

Screws are how in fact one accesses the battery in an iPhone.

Obviously they should be using big ph1 screws

This post is misleading. Have you watched a YouTube video of what it takes to replace a battery in a modern, advanced mobile phone? Woah, that is a lot of glue. And, it is very tricky to do it right.

A 1-2 hour process which includes heating to soften glue, high potential of damaging internal components, or high potential of cracking some piece of glass is not "Screws are how in fact one accesses the battery in an iPhone."

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Battery+Replacement/1...

You’re describing removing the rear glass (and it takes 30mins, tops, I’ve done it). Something that’s not covered by the EU legislation I might add.

It literally says the following about removing the battery (emphasis mine)

> Unfasten the battery connector cover screws

and…

> remove the single 1.0 mm-long screw securing the charging coil connector cover

After that it’s just two easy to remove adhesive pull tabs to get the battery out (which would pass the test for user replaceable in the EU law).

Complain about how hard it is to get the glass off, fine, but that’s got zilch to do with the EU law

> “A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy or solvents to disassemble it.”

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/24/23771064/european-union-b...

If you need to use a heater to get access to the battery to remove it, this would probably be forbidden.

possibly, yes, it’s certainly an argument that could be made in court. However the battery itself can be removed without those. It’s the rear glass that can’t (currently, who knows in 4 years).

Sounds hair splitting I know, but court cases are won & lost on less.

> You’re describing removing the rear glass (and it takes 30mins, tops, I’ve done it).

And? That just seems to prove ifixit's estimate are accurate.

> It literally says the following about removing the battery (emphasis mine)

AFTER spending 30+ minutes very carefully remove a glass cover (as you even attest to). It isn't simply unscrewing screws as portrayed.

> Complain about how hard it is to get the glass off, fine, but that’s got zilch to do with the EU law

I wasn't commenting on EU law, but how "Screws are how in fact one accesses the battery in an iPhone" is very misleading.

This is good for the EU no doubt; but unfortunately they'll just make an EU-only variant just like Apple did with removable SIM cards.

I also had a pixel begin to boot then make 911 calls upon getting moisture in it. I damaged the sim slot prying it out so it wouldn't dial 911 any more.

I figured my experience was a freak occurrence - how is this a (n=2) failure mode when getting wet!?

Sounds lucky. Phones can call 911 in the US without a sim, so that wouldn’t necessarily stop it.

Just put it in a Faraday cage. Problem solved.

I wonder if a microwave is a sufficient Faraday cage to kill cell reception

Usually. You can check by putting your phone in and closing the door while looking at the signal strength meter. It should go without saying don’t turn the microwave oven on with your expensive electronics inside. If you get decent reception in the closed oven, you need a new one.

Definitely works to kill reception forever if you power up the microwave for a couple of minutes…

"you need a new one." <-- New microwave, I presume?

You may just need to clean the inside of the door so it closes better. Try that first.

They did quite well for 3G and even 4G which didn't have as many above 2.4GHz , but after 4GLTE, 5G has added a lot of mid-bands between 2.6-6GHz. Those tend to leak more since they have shorter wavelengths than microwaves are built around 2.4GHz. Some of them are only used in a few countries, but n2 & n77 are widely used by ATT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands

You gotta take that phone out sometime though to heat up your ramen.

4GLTE/5G compatible microwave is needed!

>> That was a fun night when the dead phone woke up and started dialling 112 repeatedly and there was nothing I could do short of smashing the damn thing with a hammer to stop it.

> Just put it in a Faraday cage. Problem solved.

Even if I don't have a hammer handy, I could probably find something in the middle of the night to smash the thing. A Faraday cage on the other hand...

Not sure your kitchen situation, but most homes have a microwave. Shouldn't that work?

There are many frequency bands used by phone, I'm not sure everything is blocked by microwave.

I tested this. My phone does indeed have a network connection in the microwave.

Tried that. Didn't work.

Do I need to turn on the microwave with the phone inside it? This is an honest question because I don't know anything about microwave signals (I could google/research), but my instinct tells me I probably shouldn't turn on the microwave with the phone inside it, though I don't know for sure what will happen (explode?)

Don't microwave electronics

Never. Never. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAImzF2fYOs

No, a Faraday cage does not require power (just grounding).

Grounding is not necessary in this case, where we are dealing with EM radiation, not static charges.

Why would it need grounding? Are you thinking of static electricity?

What about tin foil?

I wonder if it shouldn't be a thing we keep handy. Like a foldable Faraday cage (bag ?) big enough to fit a laptop that can be whiped out in case of emergency.

They definitely make Faraday cage bags that are about as thick as heavy mil trash bags. Depending on the issue (EMP?) you may need to double bag if primitive YouTube experiments are anything to go by (basically, does the phone ring/radio receive once it's enclosed).

One of the things I remember from the Snowden reporting is that he had the reporters use a freezer as a Faraday cage for their phones.

Talk about a cold reception.

No, they used it as acoustic insulation for the microphones and optical insulation for the cameras. The signal blocking, if any, is just a bonus, but isn't to be relied upon.

Or a biscuit tin.

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