(Answer requested by Oskar Jackowiak)
His full question:
- “Say I’m charging my Galaxy S10 with my portable powerbank, if I was to drop the phone whilst connected into water will I possibly die and/or will the phone be damaged?”
I’d be more worried about the powerbank than the phone, or you.
Top-brand phones have been at least somewhat water-resistant for the last several generations. The S10, for example, is rated to resist water ingress at depths up to five feet, for up to 30 minutes.
The soap and other chemicals in bathwater won’t help matters, but if you can rescue the phone immediately; unplug everything; turn the phone off; give it a quick, gentle rinse with fresh water; followed by an immediate dry-toweling (perhaps also gently using dry cotton swabs to wick moisture from the phone’s openings); and don’t turn it back on until you’re sure everything’s thoroughly dried; I’ll bet the phone itself will be fine.
I wouldn’t trust the usb cable until the end that was submerged is 100% clean of all bath products, and thoroughly dry.
If the powerbank itself didn’t get wet, and appears to operate normally after the phone’s bath, it’s probably fine. Unless you were bathing in salt water, it’s unlikely that the powerbank will have instantly shorted out; and even less likely that it would somehow deliver enough power to dangerously energize an entire bathub.
But if the powerbank also went in the water; or if it shows any signs of unusual behavior after the phone’s bath, stop using the powerbank and get a new one.
In any case, this sure seems like an easily-avoided scenario.
Isn’t there some other time to charge your phone, or to bathe. 🙂
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The answer might well be different if it were Alternating Current (AC) rather than Direct Current (DC). AC is inherently more dangerous. So the answer changes if a cord attached to an outlet is involved. This is why most building codes prohibit any outlets within spray range of your shower, but battery-powered (DC) units are fine if they are waterproof.
When Edison was trying to sell his DC power stations to the world, he held a demonstration. A vivid demonstration. A circus elephant had killed a keeper and was sentenced to death. Edison hooked up an AC device that electrocuted the huge beast–his DC current would not have the same dangerous effect. The advantage to AC is that it travels much better, thus allowing many fewer power stations.