Can a YouTube video clean water out of your smartphone?

There are a million different hacks out there for drying out a wet smartphone, like sticking it in rice (although we’re apparently not supposed to do that anymore). But what if it were as simple as playing a YouTube video? Many users have taken to the video streaming platform to save their devices. The videos are all something along the lines of “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ),” one of the more popular options. It’s two minutes and six seconds of a deep, low buzzing that makes your phone vibrate, thus expelling any water in the speaker cavity.

iFixit recently decided to test how well this video really dries out a phone. They submerged an iPhone 13, a Pixel 7 Pro, a Pixel 3, and a Nokia 7.1 in a UV bath for one minute, then tapped them a little to get the water out before playing the aforementioned video. The next day they examined the phones for residue from the UV dye to see how well the water had been expelled.

The Pixel 7 Pro fared the best, with hardly any water left over, while the Nokia 7.1 was basically ruined. The iPhone 13 and Pixel 3 fell somewhere in between the two. Closeup videos taken of each phone while the water-expelling video was played showed that it does work at getting water out of the speaker cavity, but it doesn’t do much for all the other openings like the USB port or SIM card slot. So the video does work, but you should probably still be taking extra precautions to protect your handset.