Check out how you can keep your smartphone safe this Holi. (Express Photo) Holi is just around the corner and if you are planning to celebrate with friends and family, remember it is important to keep your smartphone safe. All the water and colours can ruin a device, and even if your smartphone is water-resistant, it is safe against only splashes and not completely waterproof. Moreover, coloured water contains tiny colour particles that could damage your smartphone circuits if they get inside.
Ideally, your phone should stay at home when you go to play Holi. However, if you must carry it, here are some tips and tricks to keep your phone safe while enjoy playing Holi with your friends and family.
Share a phone
If you’re playing Holi with close friends and family, the easiest way is to just collectively take one phone out with all of you. Use the call divert feature on all the other phones to divert your calls to one single device.
You will most likely need only one phone amongst yourselves for pictures and the occasional important calls. Moreover, in the event that things don’t go according to plan, you risk damaging only one smartphone instead of all of them.
Protect your phone’s ports
The easiest way for water to get inside your phone is via the ports and speaker grille. Covering these should prevent any accidental splashes from entering the device. There are many ways to do this. You could use cases that cover the ports with flaps, ziplock bags and even rain protection cases.
Alternatively, if you’re in a pinch, you could also protect your ports by slapping on a sheet of duct tape around the phone before putting on a case. If you do this, make sure your phone has enough battery to last until you can get back home, since you won’t be able to open the tape when playing Holi and when around water.
Protect your phone’s skin/case
The expensive skin or phone case that you may use with your smartphone to protect it is one of the most overlooked aspects during the festival of Holi. We often protect all our phones’ ports but come home to find a good case or skin that has been completely ruined by colours. Even if you use a ziplock bag to protect your phone, you may transfer coloured particles on the case every time you use your hands to pull the phone out.
To make sure your phone case is safe, simply use a cheaper spare phone case for Holi. Ideally, use one that you can discard or a plain silicone case that can easily be cleaned. To protect your skin, laminate your phone with a thin layer of transparent plastic. Most phone case and customisation stores will do this at an affordable price. This will also increase the longevity of your skin itself.
Use a pattern on the lock screen
When you want to unlock your phone after playing Holi, colours on your face and hands may prevent you from using features like the fingerprint scanner and face unlock to unlock your device. This leaves you with only the manual, traditional way to unlock the device. Switching to a pattern to lock the phone could be much more convenient than entering a pin or password with your dirty hands.
Protect your data
People often leave their phones lying around when they are playing Holi. However, this could be very unsafe when there may be people around who may want to sneak into your phone, or worse, steal it.
To protect your phone from being stolen, never leave it unattended in the first place. However, if you think you may leave it aside and forget about it, always leave your mobile data and location turned on. This may help your phone be traceable in some cases if it gets stolen.
Also, make sure your phone is protected and that the quick settings and power menu are not accessible without unlocking the device. You can do this on Android phones by disabling your power menu and quick settings panel from showing when the phone is locked. This will prevent anyone from turning off your location and your data, or from switching off your device.
Take better pictures
Holi is all about colours and the photos you take on Holi should be all about colours as well. If your smartphone camera supports an HDR or colour-enhancing mode, make sure you enable it to make the colours pop out in your pictures. If capturing someone in action, don’t forget to use burst mode on supported phones so you get the shot right. Also, keep a small micro-fibre cloth with you to keep your lenses clean at all times.
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