Frequently asked questions

A free browser tool that plays calibrated low-frequency tones through your speaker to push out trapped water and loose dust. There is no app, no account and no download — the tone is generated in your browser, so not even an audio file is fetched.

Playing a low tone at high volume drives the speaker cone through its maximum travel hundreds of times a second. That movement breaks the surface tension holding water against the grille mesh and pumps air outward. Point the speaker down and gravity carries the loosened water out. The 165 Hz page goes into the physics.

Yes, completely. Every tool and every mode, unlimited. There is no paid tier, no trial, no account and no upsell to an app.

No. It is a web page. Open it, press start. It works in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Samsung Internet on any device.

After the first load, largely yes — the tone is generated by your browser rather than streamed, so once the page is cached there is nothing more to fetch. Add it to your home screen if you want it available reliably.

No. There is no account, no login, no upload and no tracking. Nothing about your device leaves your browser — the tool has no server component at all. See the privacy policy.

No. Phone speakers have amplifier limits built in specifically so that normal use cannot destroy them, and a 30-second tone is well within what they handle routinely. The full safety guide covers this in detail.

Provided you keep it away from your ears, yes. A sustained loud tone at close range is genuinely capable of causing hearing damage, and it is easier to overdo than music because a pure tone does not register as being as loud as it is. Never hold the speaker to your ear, and never wear earbuds while it plays.

No. Never. A sealed ear canal means none of that energy escapes, and this is the one genuine safety rule on the site. Put the earbuds on a table, start the tone from your phone, and stay back.

Slightly, and it is the one technically valid concern. Music has peaks and gaps that let the voice coil cool; a continuous tone does not. It matters over many minutes at maximum volume, not over a 30-second cycle. Short cycles with breaks are both safer and more effective.

No. Two or three cycles with short breaks is the recommended approach anyway. Just avoid running it continuously for many minutes at maximum volume.

It is a kindness. Dogs and cats hear a wider frequency range than we do and find sustained tones genuinely distressing.

One full 30-second cycle for fresh water. If it is still muffled, wipe the grille and run it two or three more times, waiting about 30 seconds between runs. Several short cycles work better than one long one.

More than anything else, including which frequency you pick. The cleaning effect comes from how far the cone travels, and travel scales with volume. At half volume you are barely moving the water. Use the physical buttons and go to maximum.

Speaker grille facing straight down. The tone loosens the water and gravity removes it. Holding the phone flat means you are shaking water around inside the chamber rather than out of it.

Almost always Bluetooth. If your phone is still paired with a watch, car, earbuds or TV, the tone is playing there. Turn Bluetooth off entirely, and on iPhone check the Control Centre audio card for AirPlay.

Yes. Cases with a raised lip trap ejected water right against the grille so it wicks straight back in. It takes five seconds and makes a real difference.

Listen to the tone itself. With water in the chamber the first few seconds usually sound crackly or distorted — that is the cone hitting water. As it clears, the tone smooths into a clean hum. That change is more reliable than looking for visible droplets.

Either moisture elsewhere in the phone needs hours to evaporate, or the problem is lint rather than water — try Dust Removal — or the driver is damaged, which no tone can fix. Work through the muffled speaker checklist.

That is a torn or deformed diaphragm, not a blockage. Cleaning will not help and more cycles will not change it. A speaker module is one of the cheaper phone repairs, so it is worth getting a quote.

Total silence usually means a failed amplifier or a disconnected flex cable rather than a blockage. Confirm with the speaker test — if one channel is completely dead, that is hardware.

Run the tone, but do not stop there. Salt and chlorine leave corrosive deposits behind once the water evaporates, and those keep attacking the board. Rinse the outside with clean fresh water, then get it professionally cleaned.

That is the phone protecting itself from charging through a wet port, and you should let it. Run the cleaning tone, leave the phone somewhere dry with airflow, and the warning clears on its own. Never override it and never apply heat.

No. Rice absorbs ambient humidity, not water sealed inside a chassis, and it is slower than leaving the phone in a dry room. It also sheds starch dust into the grille and ports. Skip it.

Yes, on every model. One thing worth knowing: on most iPhones only the right-hand grille at the bottom is the speaker — the left is a microphone. See the iPhone page.

Yes, on every Android phone. The main thing to get right is the media volume slider, which is separate from the ringtone slider — press start first, then hold volume up. See the Android page.

Yes. Samsung also ships a genuine speaker diagnostic in the Members app, which is worth running first to tell a blockage apart from a fault. See the Samsung page.

Yes, at about half volume rather than maximum, and never while wearing them. It works well on sweat and water and only marginally on earwax, which is sticky and needs brushing. See AirPods and earbuds.

Yes, and laptops usually need Dust Removal rather than water eject — their grilles face upward on a desk and collect far more dust than phones do. See the laptop page.

Yes. Pair the speaker, use about three quarters volume, and run cycles with different faces pointing down — passive radiators on the ends hold water. See the Bluetooth speaker page.