This wildly popular device is a science-backed method to keep your phone clean

March 12, 2020 at 01:00PM by CWC

You touch your phone an average of 150 times a day—including while you’re in the bathroom. And while it’s more important than ever to wash your hands, if you aren’t cleaning your phone, germs are being transferred right back to your fingertips and everything else you touch. Knowing how to clean your phone is tricky. You can’t exactly scrub it for 20 seconds with soap and water. If you have an antibacterial wipe handy, that could work. Another option: PhoneSoap, a science-backed device that uses UV-C light to do the cleaning.

PhoneSoap sort of looks like a tanning bed for your phone. It works with ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, a disinfection method that uses UV-C light (which has a shorter wavelength than UV-A and UV-B light) to break apart bacterial DNA, rendering it unable to function or reproduce. The sanitizing process only takes about 10 minutes, but the bed doubles as a phone charger, so if you want to leave your phone in there to get some juice, that’s fine, too.

The idea of using UV-C light to fight germs isn’t new. One study out of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University found that incorporating short wavelength rays in public spaces helps to cut down on the spread of the flu. In fact, it’s been proven to be so effective at killing bacteria that it’s already being used in hospitals to sterilize surgical equipment. Another study also found UV-C light to be the most lethal types of light to germs. According to the study, UV-C light kills between 99.5 percent and 99.9 percent of germs, so yes, this stuff works.

Technically, anything that fits in PhoneSoap beds can be sanitized, but it’s made to accommodate both iPhone and Android. PhoneSoap ($80) is so popular that they’re currently backordered, but you can still click-to-buy and get it in a few weeks. If you want to go all out, there’s PhoneSoap Pro ($120), which sanitizes your phone in half the time. Either way, Germs don’t stand a chance.

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Author Emily Laurence | Well and Good
Selected by CWC