eli5 How do waterproof phones work? Why are most phones only waterproof for a certain period of time?
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Everything is only water proof for a certain period of time, it just might not be a useful time scale
Water is tricky. Its really good at slowly sneaking its way through things and around things. The more time you give it and the more pressure behind it, the more likely it is to make it through.
Phones use an assortment of creative fits, seals, and hydrophobic (water afraid) materials to keep water out. The water will slowly start creeping its way in and around and over all of those defenses as no seal is 100% perfect so if it spends enough time in the water it will eventually make it in. Similarly, the seals only fit with a certain amount of pressure, if you were to take an iPhone down to the Titanic(3800 meters down), it would experience 380x standard pressure and the water would pretty quickly bust through any seals to get inside.
We test phones against reasonable occurrences. One of the standard Ingress Protection (IP rating) tests against water is 1 meter for 30 minutes and the device has to work afterwards. Its a reasonable timeframe to test and a depth your phone might encounter so most things targeted IP67.
There’s now a push for better protection specs so you’ll see more things rated to IP68 where the manufacturer can get certified for long time or greater depth. They still generally pick 30 minutes because that’s what the competitors are using and opt to prove it out at a deeper depth. A phone good for 30 minutes at 6 meters is definitely good for 30 minutes at 1 meter but might not be good for 3 hours at 1 meter due to the significant increase in time for things to slowly creep around the seals
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