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I mentioned that CES was completely and utterly overwhelming. There were crowds and shiny things at every turn.

Did I mention that mere days before I was to pack all of my gear and fly across the country, my darling children destroyed my laptop with a spilled drink? No? Well it happened and thankfully, a good friend of mine was kind enough to let me use his for my trip. I was grateful for the loaner.

It seems I am not the only one with the liquid + electronic gadget problem. While wandering around in the daze of “ooh look at that, no that, no that!” I stumbled across the Liquipel demo booth. You send them your phone, which they take apart and coat with an extremely thin, hydrophobic (water repelling) coating.

Here’s me playing with a tissue that has the Liquipel coating (note – I could not feel the coating) and dunking it in water:

Is that not cool?

I became excited and immediately posted about this over on G+. Later, I went back to the booth to answer some of my followers’ questions. Click the link if you want to see the actual conversation, and I admit to getting a little frustrated with one follower who insisted that Liquipel is basically RainX. I assure you, it’s not.

This coating does not interfere with your touch screen or the contact points for your power and headphone jack. Since the phone is disassembled during application, all of the internal workings are coated, too. If water happened to enter your phone, it’s protected internally as well.

I enjoyed speaking with the reps in the booth, they all humored my questions and were patient as I posted my responses over on G+.  Which, was probably annoying, in and of itself.

This service costs $59, which is often less than device insurance plans which typically do not cover replacement for water damage.

I examined two phones, one that belonged to a lady, who like me didn’t seem extremely cautious with her older phone. Yes the face of her older blackberry had scratches, but I’m willing to bet a bunch of them were there before the coating was added. I also handled the device of a male rep who obviously prizes his phone; it was in pristine condition, even without a screen cover or case.

As soon as I come up with the willingness to part with my phone for a few days, I’m going to send it off or maybe, just maybe,  I’ll find a reason to be in So. Cal and get it done in just a few hours.

I feel like I have to mention that I have no relationship with Liquipel, I was just captivated by their demo and happy with the product familiarity and technical explanations of the reps.

Photo by Heather Solos

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About the author: Heather Solos (11 Posts)