Today’s Weather Alert from weather.com said: “CHANCE OF RAIN: 100%” (they weren’t kidding). In typical macho style I put on my rain-proof jacket & went out mapping anyway. I stayed out too long.

Surprisingly, the rain doesn’t penetrate the smartphone — a credit to the design — but it does interfere with the capacitance on the glass surface, and that interferes with it’s touch-sensitive design, which becomes a real pain after a short while. In spite of it all I managed whilst mapping to get a couple of photos of interesting house numbers to show here…

The first (above) comes from very close to last week’s MPG. I think that some may think this a little twee, and the mixture of Japanese-inspired artwork & renaissance-inspired cherubs is certainly odd, but I don’t care - the owners like them & so do I.

For a complete contrast (below) how about this black cat (you can possibly detect traces of rain on the lens here):

Coda: “Surprisingly, the rain doesn’t penetrate the smartphone”

I believe that the Army has a small mantra for it’s officers to learn from:—

“Spoken in haste, regretted at leisure”.

Sunday 4 Sep (next day): This morning the SmartFirst6 smartphone would not start up, nor be powered from it’s charger. It turned out to have small pools (yes! pools) of water in the rear, where there are slots in the plastic to allow the sound out, and the battery & electronics are all congregated. Very poor design, Vodaphone.

My so-called rain-proof jacket was twice the weight when I got home yesterday, the rubberised-coating is abrading & it seems that quantities of water dripped into the pockets, which is where the smartphone was placed. Very dumb decisions, Alex.

It seems that I am learning the difference between “water-resistant” and “water-proof”. I’ve opened the phone up as much as possible & will leave it to dry & see if it can be rescued, or will I be pleased that it was a “cheap” smartphone?

Monday 5 Sep: Rice seems to have saved the ‘phone (or at least, that is the early experience - time will show).

Capillary action (wicking) is the great danger with electronic equipment, and therefore the question is how to wick the moisture in the opposite direction? What is needed is a hygroscopic (water-loving) material, and the easiest available is (uncooked) rice. I love boxes and therefore have lots around. The clear-plastic container for a former gift of Ferrero Rocher (are they ever bought not as a gift?) was the perfect size to create a cm of rice as a bed with smartphone on top in a sealed compartment. 36 hours seems to have fixed it. The one surprise is that the battery was at 100% (and, at this moment, is at 95%).

Trees mostly wick water from their roots to the crown. The tallest tree is reported at 379.7 feet (115.7 m), which gives some feeling for the power of water to penetrate across thin films.

Two of the greatest dangers in the phone are SIM + SD-Card (both offer ideal thin-film surfaces and have active electronic connections). After checking it was powered down, the first thing that I did was to remove:

1. phone-back
2. battery
3. SIM card
4. SD-Card

The above were also all left off during the 36 hours & re-assembled last. I already had the PDF on disk, and it had full diagrams & instructions. In addition, the SmartFirst6 is able to have both SIM & SDCard removed (I would not have bought it otherwise).

final words: I mapped today & the smartphone has worked OK, so I seem to have dodged the bullet this time.