Heat Wave Warning and Your Gear

Stormdancing

I know it has been talked about many times taking care of your camera equipment when going from the heated indoors out into cold weather in the winter time. Put your equipment in a ziplock and let it acclimate to the cold temps outside......

Well better be careful with your cell phone also.

I sat in an air conditioned office all day. My cell phone was in the outside pocket of my purse under my desk. Right before leaving I made a personal call on my cell phone. Ok time to go.

Two blocks away I had a 20 minute meeting at the bank about their website. I didn't take my purse in with me, just my notebook and story board. I return to the truck and proceed to make another call for my next stop. Cell Phone dead. Hmmmmmm Fiddled and fiddled with it and no go.

So I call in. They have me remove the battery and tell them what color the dot is inside. Well it's red. Ok your warranty is void, you've obviously dropped it in water.:tough:bigbs:bigbs

HUH What are you talking about? It's been in my purse. No water in my purse.

Be warned! It's going to cost me big time to replace my phone. Going from an air conditioned area out into the 102 degree heat wave that we are experiencing here in the Midwest will cause moisture to condense inside your cell phone, FLOCK it all up and void your warranty.

I'm pissed.:boid:boid:argue

aj986s

I would argue with them about the humidity problem. Or maybe first ask them what temp parameters the phone is designed to work within. If the phone was actually dropped in water, there would be a lot more evidence of water inside the case. I would tell them that the only thing you did was go from inside an airconditioned building out into the heat. If the phone wasn't designed to do that, then they should have a warning label on the phone. :whew
Otherwise, make them prove there's additional water damage/evidence in the phone. How do you know that red dot was "red" all along??

Stormdancing

I agree with all your points Tony. Unfortunately the customer service people just keep reading from their script and telling me I dropped my phone in water.

Keep what happened to me in mind with your precious camera gear. I don't want anything to happen to somebody's gear. You're all hot and sweaty from shooting outdoors and all you want to do is run in to the cool A/C. Boom, your camera is shot. Ouch.

jdryan3

Mind if I ask what carrier and phone model?

Stormdancing

Nokia 630i
Cingular

gus

Hmmm...thats a normal summers day temp here & all our office buildings/cars are air-cond. That would kill tens of thousands of phones here a day. Whilst i dont doubt your phones death at all ..i would think something else may be responsible.

DavidTO

gus wrote:

Hmmm...thats a normal summers day temp here & all our office buildings/cars are air-cond. That would kill tens of thousands of phones here a day. Whilst i dont doubt your phones death at all ..i would think something else may be responsible.

Could be. But you don't have the humidity that they do on the east coast of the US, either.

gus

DavidTO wrote:

Could be. But you don't have the humidity that they do on the east coast of the US, either.

We get constant days in summer with it over 90% & many at 95%...its sub-tropical here. In summer i often see my own sweat running out of the leather of my work boots as the sweat runs down into them & collects... you simply cannot dry off at all.

David_S85

Eeek! I'd escalate that upwards until you get a better resolution on the phone warranty issue. If their phone isn't up to taking humidity, there are bound to be other people with the same problem. Scour the forums on the net for this.

We're not too far from you and I've hesitated taking any of my camera gear outside lately. I mean, if one walks outside and glasses fog up immediately, then electronic gear is also vulnerable. Still - some humidity alone shouldn't kill a cell phone - and not that quickly. Good luck on this.

Stormdancing

Is your dot red?
Gus, while the humidity may not be the issue that has caused the phone to fail, it is the cause of the moisture indicator turning red. At that point they will not investigate any further. Warannty void, period. Most likely it has failed because of shoddy quality and the red dot is just their scam to get out of replacing it.

I'm in SW Indiana and the humidity is wicked here. We are in the 11th day of over 100 degree heat and extremely high humidity. Might get a break today. Only 98 predicted.

We should all take note and let this be a reminder about acclimating our camera gear the same way we do in the winter. Ziploc! Like David said, if your glasses immediately start dripping condensation when you walk out the door, so will your gear.

Stormdancing

David_S85 wrote:

If their phone isn't up to taking humidity, there are bound to be other people with the same problem. Scour the forums on the net for this.

Acutally, we were shooting a commercial here yesterday and the Sales Manager that came with the crew said it happened to his phone. He did not get anywhere with Verizon in his case. The red dot of death.:bs

DavidTO

gus wrote:

We get constant days in summer with it over 90% & many at 95%...its sub-tropical here. In summer i often see my own sweat running out of the leather of my work boots as the sweat runs down into them & collects... you simply cannot dry off at all.

Oh, I figured with the long drought there it must be dry. I figured wrong.

gus

DavidTO wrote:

Oh, I figured with the long drought there it must be dry. I figured wrong.

Drought does not stop the humidity and if you look at it, we all had phones prior to the start of the current drought. We get high humidity for 6 to 7 months of the year.

schmoo

gus wrote:

Drought does not stop the humidity and if you look at it, we all had phones prior to the start of the current drought. We get high humidity for 6 to 7 months of the year.

Ooo, snap!

On-topic: I am not a fan of Verizon's customer service, and thank you Stormdancing for the reminder/warning.

Stormdancing

schmooo wrote:

Ooo, snap!

On-topic: I am not a fan of Verizon's customer service, and thank you Stormdancing for the reminder/warning.

My main point in posting this here is not to bitch about cell phone companies, (Although I am because I got screwed) but to have everyone think about protecting their camera gear from this same type of thing.

gus

Stormdancing wrote:

Gus, while the humidity may not be the issue that has caused the phone to fail, it is the cause of the moisture indicator turning red. At that point they will not investigate any further. Warannty void, period. Most likely it has failed because of shoddy quality and the red dot is just their scam to get out of replacing it.

I'm in SW Indiana and the humidity is wicked here. We are in the 11th day of over 100 degree heat and extremely high humidity. Might get a break today. Only 98 predicted.

That is more to my way of thinking. Where i work , we all work in the these temps for a large part of the year & in humidity totally off the dial. Most of us carry 2 mobile phones (1 work & 1 personal) They get so soaked in sweat that the screens are often unreadable with inside condensation...we wear flame proof clothing in these conditions & often full face enclosures with 3 pairs of gloves over each other & we are totally soaked for a good part of the day...the phones are in our pockets & never stop but i would be certainly interested to see if they also have the indicator showing that they have been in contact with water. I suspect they would be like yours.

98 ? Take a coat

Stormdancing

gus wrote:

98 ? Take a coat

I'll wear my woolies, just for you gus.