Around six months ago, I started having a few problems with the hands free kit to my mobile phone. I took the phone into the telus mobility shop to ask their advice. The assistant took the back off the phone, pointed to a tiny sticker which was very slightly pink and said “This phone has water damage. That voids your warranty, and you will have to pay the full price for a repair or replacement.” I said thanks but no thanks, as the phone was working fine.
But I got to wondering, what IS a water damage sticker, and how accurate is it?
Well, water damage stickers are used in almost every smartphone these days. They are small stickers usually around half a centimeter in size, and are placed inside the phone. Apple actually go one further with the Iphone, and place at least one and in some cases two on the outside of the phone. Even if the outside of the phone then comes into contact with moisture, Apple will claim this voids the warranty.
But the stickers are not infallible. Look around the internet and you will see all kinds of postings about how different kinds of things affect them. One of the main things is relative humidity. I bought some of these stickers and tested them out.
One of the best places to go for high relative humidity is the exotic bird/butterfly house at Toronto zoo. We placed several stickers inside a dummy phone’s back cover, and several on the outside. The results were quite astonishing. Within five minutes, the outside stickers were no longer white. One, where the phone was in contact with clothing, turned quite a bright red – recording a very false positive. But worse was the fact that the stickers placed INSIDE also were affected, although it took longer. 90 minutes into our test, all six stickers were beginning to turn pink or red, this would be an automatic rejection by a telephone company as “water damage” – and yet our dummy telephone had never been near water.
Other places you might come into contact with high humidity in the home are if your mobile phone is in a handbag or pocket near to a shower or bath, or if you have a baby nursery and you have a humidifier in the room. Dew moisture – that is, from going from a warm room to a cold outside – can also turn a sticker if the temperature change is sufficiently fast. All of these can, over time, influence the stickers in these devices.
Which leads to a very important question: Where do they stand legally?
The answer to that depends on the country. In the United Kingdom there are much stronger safeguards than there are in the United States or Canada. The law in the UK does not yet recognize these stickers as being grounds to void a warranty, as no case has yet been brought before the courts. UK consumer law requires that the item – in this case the telephone handset – be sturdy enough to withstand reasonable wear and tear and still be “suitable for use for the purpose for which it was sold.” Thus, if a customer decides to threaten legal action the onus would actually be on the telephone company to prove that these indicator stickers were a reliable proof of direct water damage, rather than on the person suing them. If they could not prove to a courts satisfaction that the stickers were not likely to record a false postitive over time, they could find themselves required to warranty repair handsets that didn’t have more obvious water damage. This they want to avoid doing, so it would be likely they would spin the “as a gesture of good faith, and not admitting liability, as you’re such a good customer we’ll repair the phone for free just this once – but if we do, you are agreeing that should the same happen in future, you ARE liable for repair costs.” Be aware that this spin does actually change the terms of a future warranty on that device. Caveat Emptor if you accept this.
In North America it’s quite a different story. In Canada consumer protection laws are certainly stronger than in the US, but Canadian consumer law would likely leave the customer having to prove a false positive; not that difficult given our experience at Toronto zoo – maybe someone should make a YouTube video of it.
The worst consumer protection is in the United States. Here the consumer would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt and through the court system that the stickers could give false positives, and even then that would not necessarily prove that their particular phone had not been water damaged. Add to that the delaying tactics a large phone manufacturer could apply which would lead the case to go on for years, and you have such a massive lawyers bill that most plaintiffs would have to drop the case – it would be just too expensive.
There are no figures which accurately show how much money these tiny little stickers save the mobile phone industry in what would otherwise be warranty repairs. Given the high traffic of discussion on the subject in forums, the figure is likely to be quite substantial. Interestingly enough, the answer to the conundrum in all three countries is to actually find and remove these stickers, since it then becomes the onus of the manufacturer to prove they were there in the first place. More savvy companies are trying to find voidable stickers that cannot be removed without leaving a trace just to stop this. Another answer is to scotch tape a cut piece of paper over the top of the sticker, as the tape would then provide a moisture barrier. This is likely to be the reason Apple build these into the case itself, as to seal these off from moisture becomes practically impossible.
But the question we SHOULD be asking is not how can we get around these stickers, but more why should we have to? As a consumer society, large companies such as cellphone manufacturers are clearly now exploiting their customers, building these things with a kind of built in obsolescence. It’s a good example of corporatism in action, shifting any blame for the failure of their devices onto the customer, with these stickers being a perfect example of the method. Either way, the solution as ever is to be informed. Know your local consumer rights, know about how these stickers can cause false positives, and be prepared to challenge your local outlet as it is with them (as provider of the equipment to you, the end user) you have a contract, and not with the actual cellphone manufacturer.
Good luck.
Further reading:
http://www.belowtopsecret.com/forum/thread510940/pg1
http://techgeist.net/2009/09/apple-iphone-abuse-detection-sensors-abusing-2/