As the cost of a smartphone becomes increasingly high, so too do our concerns over breaking such a valuable device. Back when a phone was only used for two-way calling, breaking it was a relatively minor inconvenience. But when you break your smartphone now, you're cut off from your work email, your social calendar, your GPS, your camera, and more work obligations, family communications, and social interactions.
To help you better protect your investment, here is a list of tips to avoid the most common ways to break your smartphone.
1. Use a Quality Case to Protect Your Phone
Properly shield your phone before disaster strikes. Use a durable and waterproof phone case to protect your phone. This way your phone has the best protection against any drops—in water or on dry land.
Also, make sure you cover your phone screen with a good screen protector. Using a tempered glass screen protector gives you an additional level of safety.
2. Properly Store Your Phone
Properly store your phone in a purse with a cell phone slot or in a belt clip. Phones fall out of loose pockets constantly and a quick turn or bend can send your phone crashing to the floor.
In your back pocket, your phone may fall out and hit the floor, or worse, the toilet bowl in a public restroom. The back pocket also presents the issue of sitting down on your phone and cracking the screen.
It's always better to be safe than sorry and store your phone in a secure location.
3. Beware the Bathroom
The bathroom is a nightmare zone for phone safety. It's safest if you just leave your phone in another room entirely. All electronics should be kept away from open water as it's dangerous for both you and your phone.
Many phones have been lost to the dreaded toilet bowl. You may already avoid using the phone in the bathtub, but even while you’re showering, steam droplets can ruin a phone sitting innocently on the counter.
Swap out the smartphone for self-care in the bathroom and start listening to a shower radio or waterproof Bluetooth speaker instead.
4. Keep the Exterior of Your Phone Clean
Some of the best phone cases are also the best at caking your phone with dirt, bacteria, dead skin cells, and general grime. All this dirt has the potential to mess with your phone's input jacks and sensitivity settings.
Luckily, cleaning your phone is easier than ever. You can even use a UV light sanitation station to help remove leftover bacteria from the phone, giving you and your phone an additional layer of protection.
5. Keep the Interior of Your Phone Clean
Small missteps regarding a phone's software have the opportunity to seriously damage your phone's functionality over time. Keeping your phone’s software clean means removing any bugs and spyware, but it also involves making smaller, everyday changes.
Restarting your phone has the possibility to speed it up, improve your battery life, clean out the temporary memory, and more.
You should also completely shut down your phone now and again. Not only will it give you a rest from technology, but it will also allow your phone to cool down from time to time and will potentially expand your phone's lifespan.
6. Never Sleep With Your Phone
Putting your phone under your pillow at night is a dangerous fire hazard. If possible, always charge your phone in the daytime and on a non-flammable surface.
Your phone could warm up from the heat of your body, the pillows and blankets, the power from the charging crd, and even apps that are running in the background. All of these combined have the potential to overheat your phone causing damage to the hardware and more importantly, acting as a liability to your safety while sleeping.
7. Goldilocks and the Perfect Phone Temperature
Keeping your phone at a safe temperature is vital for prolonging its life. Overheating can lead to battery length issues, power issues, and hardware damage. Although extreme cold temperatures may not cause the same internal damage, they can still damage your battery.
In both situations, most smartphones will try to automatically shut down before any real damage can occur. Despite this, it's best to keep your phone at moderate temperatures.
8. Handle Your Smartphone Properly
Don't get lazy with your Android or iPhone care as it loses its fresh-out-the-box sheen. You must always use two hands on your phone. You’re twice as likely to drop the phone by using one hand compared to two.
Also, make sure you're setting your phone down in safe, flat locations when not in use. Keeping your smartphone in the center of a waist-height surface where it's safe from long falls and also safe from young children and pets is one of the best spots to choose.
9. Leave Your Phone at Home
If you don’t need the phone, try leaving it in the car or at home. The cameras in our smartphones make us want to take them on every exciting adventure, but sometimes the safest option is to leave them behind.
Although it might be fun to bring your phone to the beach—so you can snap some cute pictures of your pals— the saltwater, sun, and sand aren’t great for a smartphone's health.
Consider your settings and decide carefully if you really need your phone before heading out.
10. Always Use Proper Charging Techniques
Small changes to your charging method can make a major difference to the lifespan of your phone. Many people are unaware that it's actually possible to overcharge a smartphone by keeping it plugged after it's fully charged.
Most decent charging accessories include components to avoid this causing a problem, but if you're using cheap third-party chargers, you might want to unplug your phone when it's fully charged.
It’s also important that you plug in the charging cord gently. Being rough with the charger can damage not only to the cord but your phone itself.
Stop and Think
Each of these tips offers a great way to avoid breaking your smartphone by making a small change to how you use it. In truth, although accidents do often happen, most incidents related to broken phones could be avoided if we slowed down and thought out our actions in advance.
Despite all of our hard work, screen protectors, heavy-duty cases, and planning, some accidents are still out of our control. Luckily, it doesn't need to be the end of the world if you break your smartphone screen.