Phonesoap Review
Have you ever really thought about how disgusting our phones are? Think about where your hands were the last 24 hours, how often you washed them, and how often you touched your phone. Our PhoneSoap review might make you want put your phone down immediately.
Did you know that a cellphone carries 10 times more bacteria than most toilet seats? You may clean your bathroom regularly, but when’s the last time you stuck your phone under a faucet, or sprayed it with a cleaner? Probably not in a while – most of us probably aren’t sure how to properly clean a phone without damaging it.
And so the PhoneSoap was born out of a pretty big hole in the phone accessories market. It was the first and now most widely used phone uv sanitizer today. The new PhoneSoap 3 has a few updates to the original, but for the most part, it continues to do exacty what it always has: it cleans the filth off your phone.
Is a UV Sanitizer necessary to Clean a Phone?
Before we get to the phonesoap and how it works, let’s take a minute to consider just how much bacteria that’s floating around on our phones. There’s lots of reports on how nasty phones can be, as much as 18x dirtier than a public toilet. One man even contracted the ebola virus after stealing a phone from a hospital.
Our hands touch a lot of things throughout the day, whether it’s stuff around the office, at home, or outside. Sometimes we’re close to a sink where we can wash our hands, but not always. You may get a text while your hands are a little dirty, and you have to respond. Or you get a phone call that you want to answer, so you put it up to your face. Now whatever you’ve been touching is spreading to your mouth.
And then there’s the bathroom. Let’s be honest, we’re all known for taking the phone into our bathroom on occasion. And we know that filthy bacteria can float in the air for several feet – we don’t store our toothbrush close to our toilet for that very reason.
And yet, we take our phones out during the nastiest bit of toilet work. Not just in our own bathrooms, but in public bathrooms, or at the office, or other people’s houses.
If you’re a parent like we are, then you also have the added fun of kids who aren’t particularly clean. Maybe you change diapers throughout the day, or you pickup a bunch of food that was in and out of a kid’s mouth. Or maybe your young kid just likes to mess with you and steal your phone, get their grimy hands all over it, and probably bite it too.
Our PhoneSoap Review
Now that you’re thoroughly disgusted by your phone, consider the PhoneSoap. It works like this: you place your phone into it, you close the lid, and in 10 minutes, your phone is clean. That’s it.
The UV lights in the PhoneSoap have two medical-grade UV-C lights, which kill germs without harming your phone. It uses UV-C radiation that breaks down bacteria via short wavelengths (here’s an explanation of how that works). The PhoneSoap only takes 10 minutes to destroy 99.9% of the germs on both sides of your phone.
The inside of the PhoneSoap has a reflective surface, which works to spread the UV light around ane make sure it gets the entire surface of your phone, including it’s underside.
As a bonus, the PhoneSoap 3 also has a pass through to charge your phone while it’s being sanitized. There’s a little slot for your phone charger, and on the back of the PhoneSoap there’s two USB inputs. That way you don’t have to find a seperate wall output for your phone to plug into.
At the end of the charge, the PhoneSoap light turns off, which notifies you the sanitizing process is complete.
On the bottom of the PhoneSoap, there’s a little acoustic audio amplifier that lets you hear your phone’s alarms and notifications, even when the lid is closed. That makes it easier to part with our phones for 10 minutes – which, you know, is anxiety-ridden for most of us.
PhoneSoap UV Sanitizer is not just for Phones
While our phones are probably the biggest culprits in spreading germs, the PhoneSoap is big enough to sanitize a lot of different items. Tablets, smartwatches, keys, credit cards, wallets, rings, earbuds – anything that fits within the inner dimensions – 6.8 inches in length, 3.7 inches wide, and 0.7 inches high. After our phone, the second thing we sanitized is our mouse.
Of course, the main use of the Phonesoap is for phones, and so that’s what it’s designed to fit. All sizes of Apple iPhones fit, plus Google Pixel 2 XL, Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and other big phones.
And if you like to use your phone with a case, you might as well keep the case on while it’s charging, because that’s what you’re touching throughout the day.
Conclusion
If you’re going to regularly use the PhoneSoap, you’ll want to just find a place for it, plug it in, and leave it there, ready to sanitize your phone at any time. The PhoneSoap does come in a multitude of colors, so it can match your decor in the bedroom, on your office desk, or near your TV and electronics.
And if you want to take it on the road, the PhoneSoap weighs only 1.5 pounds, so it’s light enough and small enough to fit within your other devices you can’t live without.
If reading this review has you grossed out by your phone – but you don’t yet have a PhoneSoap – then fear not. You can still clean your phone right now using just a microfiber cloth. Get a little bit of it damp, wipe your phone, and then dry it with the drier side of the cloth. And don’t use any chemicals or put your phone under a faucet.
If an old, damp microfiber cloth doesn’t feel like it’s clean enough, then maybe a UV sanitizer is for you.