During the weekend when I wanted to go for a walk, I couldn’t find my iPhone earbuds. After searching for a few minutes I remembered that I stored them in my pants as I walked up the stairs, coming home from my last walk. Where were those pants now? In the washing machine!
Not much to do… the earbuds were already half-way through their washing cycle so I figured I might as well let it finish, spin and whatever it does to clean things clothes.
Always carry extra of what you don’t want to be without – so I had a few extra earbuds around, 3 pairs, actually. On the picture below you’ll see:
- Left: Standard 1st generation iPhone earbuds – or maybe from an iPod. I’m not sure.
- Middle: The new (rather expensive) in-ear iPhone Earbuds. I don’t use those for walking as I wouldn’t be able to hear enough of the traffic around me – and believe me, when walking on this Island, you want to pay attention to traffic!
- Right: Standard iPhone earbuds with the button on the cord (like the one I washed).
As you can see, no biggie. I was covered in ‘buds.
I decided to hang the washed earbuds up to dry and apply some voodoo and magic spells. Two days later I tested them with an older music device and they played just fine. The play/pause/next/prev button on the cord works too. I can’t really hear any difference in audio quality, so I guess they were not harmed by being washed.
There – now you know, next time you wash your earbuds, don’t worry – they might still work when they get out.
lol..this reminds me of the time when I accidentally put my Ericsson T610 phone on the washing machine + drier
Amazingly it still worked after I dried it up the next day
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Oh yes, the T-six-ten… what a great phone back then, along with the T630. Slow as hell, but a great phone 🙂
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If anything I would have thought that after washing all the wax out of the buds the sound quality would have had a remarkable improvement. 😀
Anyway, I’m glad they still work, I would have hated to think you may have been down a set of plugs 😉
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Had it been any other kind of ear buds, I’m sure they would have improved, now with all the wax out of the way 😀 But the standard iPhone ear buds are not the top of the line, so…
Yeah, that’s pretty well the same with anything you buy these days. They give you the minimum required just to keep the price down. I actually bought a really great set for my iPod Touch, which enables me to use it as a phone with the aid of the Skype ap.
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That sounds like a nice piece of technology, that iPod set!
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I accidentally washed and machine dried a Razr – but luckily it was off while it was wet. A few days of drying and it worked good as new. It does have that tell-tale red dot inside the case so the dealer would know it had gotten wet before, but yep – it did! Lately I got a fob for a Camry soaking wet in an unexpected downpour, and it would no longer work. Once again – removed the battery, waited a few days, and good as new. Now I’m wondering what else I can wash – Tivo? laptop?
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How about washing your Sony XR500V camcorder while it’s recording in slowmotion? Imagine, 100k+ views on YouTube in double time! 😀
Ooooh.. now that would be one expensive video to make! 😀 If I ever win the lottery, that will be one of the first things I do.
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Dear Klaus,
It goes to show that nothing is as we expect it to be, and that technology does really survive a “good wash out”. 🙂 heehee.
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Luckily, this piece of technology survived, yes 😀
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..iPhone Free Week: Introduction To A Week With HTC Tattoo (Android) =-.