Phone safety tips for summer

Summer might not officially start until June 22nd, but anything over 70°F should count, right? And with summer comes a whole bunch of ways your phone can get messed up: water damage, overheating, or just good ol’ “whoops dropped my phone” damage.

It's called accidental damage for a reason, you don't see it coming. Take some of these tips to protect your mobile phone from damage this summer:

Avoiding water damage for your phone

As you’ve no doubt noticed, phones and water don’t mix. Granted, water doesn’t mix with most electronics, but it extra doesn’t mix with phones, because your phone has open ports for charging, a hole for the microphone and maybe even a headphone jack – all ways for water to get in and wreck your phone. While some newer phones might claim water-resistance, ultimately it's never safe to risk excessive water exposure to your phone.

Regular phone cases won’t waterproof your phone, because they too have holes to get to the holes in your phone. So, what can you do?  

One option is to get a waterproof case. A waterproof case completely seals your phone inside, covering all the ports and screen. This also means that you won’t be able to charge it via cable if it’s in the case, so make sure to charge up your phone before you go outside, underwater, or wherever else your adventures take you. The downside here is that cases can be pricey – $30-100 or over – and bulky to provide the added protection and water-proofing.

You can also get waterproof bags for your phone that are more affordable, but have a limited number of uses.

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Stop your phone from overheating‍

It’s much harder to heatproof your phone than it is to waterproof it. And overheating can be a very bad thing – it can cause your phone to suffer from slow performance, and if it is hot enough for long enough, it can cause permanent damage to your phone's battery.

Although there's no sunscreen for phones (yet), here are a few things to keep in mind to prevent your phone from overheating:

• Keep it out of direct sunlight.
• Don’t leave it in a hot car, especially on the dashboard.
• Lower the brightness on your screen. The screen is the thing that takes the most power, and the brighter the screen, the more power it uses making the phone and its battery hotter.
• Turn on the phone’s battery saver mode.  

Find a good case for phone drops

A broken phone can ruin anyone's summer fun. Whether it's a cracked screen or worse, millions of phones are broken every year. The best protection remains to be a tried-and-true phone case. Your regular thin phone case might be good enough for the office, but if you’re a real outdoors type then you’ll want to look at more rugged cases.

For outdoor adventures, sports, and exploring, you might want to investigate military grade cases. A good, rugged case will be waterproof, shock-proof (aka drop-safe), and include a screen protector – covering most of the bases for phone safety. There are even some that are antimicrobial!

Pair the above with the money you’ll save getting free wireless phone service from TextNow, and you're on your way to having the summer of a lifetime.