The LG G6 is waterproof. LG has pretty much made sure everyone gets that. With an IP68 rating, the smartphone is advertised, but not always guaranteed, to work under a certain depth of water within a certain amount of time. IP68, however, doesn’t cover encasing the smartphone in ice overnight. And yet that is exactly the test that Max Lee of High on Android set out to do. Because, why not. And the result might amaze you. Or make you go “meh”.
The “8” in IP68 means that a device is guaranteed to be protected from the entry of water when it is submerged up to a depth of 1.5 meters for a maximum of 30 minutes. The standard doesn’t guarantee anything beyond that time limit, much less more than 20 hours. And it doesn’t exactly mention anything about extreme temperatures.
In Freezing the LG G6, the smartphone has to overcome two challenges. Unless the water is frozen instantly, the phone has to spend more than 30 minutes submerged in water, even if it be just a few inches. In Max Lee’s test, the G6 actually spent around 20 hours in cold water. And then there’s extreme temperatures, in this case 0 degrees Celsius, water’s freezing point at sea level. Not all waterproof smartphones are necessarily designed to operate under extreme temperatures, and that feature is usually listed in a separate bullet point. Usually right under MIL-STD 810G “shockproof”.
So it is a bit impressive that the LG G6 does actually continue working after it has been extracted from the still solid block of ice. Perhaps it would be even more impressive it Lee allowed the water to thaw and sit longer. Nonetheless, kudos to LG for taking “reliability” seriously.
It might be too easy to brush this off as some useless stunt, but it does have some implications. If the LG G6 could survive in the fridge for 20 hours, perhaps a few hours of though in ice, it could definitely survive extremely cold weather and spending a few frightening seconds in the snow.
