How To: Keep Your Smartphone or Tablet Sparkling Clean

How To: Keep Your Smartphone or Tablet Sparkling Clean

While you may take fantastic care of your smartphone, tablet or accessories, keeping the touchscreen or an accessory spotless is a job and a half.

No matter how hard you try, with a device or accessory that is handled on a daily basis, a build up of grime, greasy oils and dirt is inevitable. However, with the right cleaning tools, you can manage the cleanliness of your device and ensure the spread of germs is kept to a minimum.

So what help is out there in the quest for the spotless, germ free device? Check out these cleaning products below:

toddy_clothMicrofiber Cloth

Microfiber cloths have been a staple for cleaning electronics for a while now and for good reason.

When using material to clean screens, it is important to use a soft, lint-free cloth, which makes microfibers the way to go. If you use a paper towel or other paper-based towels you run the risk of scratching the screen, which is much worse than a few fingerprint smudges.

By gently wiping the screen with a dry microfiber cloth, you should be able to remove most, if not all fingerprint smudges and grime, making a microfiber cloth your first port of call.

If you encounter more stubborn stains, you can lightly dampen one corner of the microfiber cloth and run it over the screen (but make sure you turn off your device and remove the battery if possible!). You can then go over it again with a dry section of the cloth to wipe away any moisture. When your device is completely dry you can put the battery back in and power it on.

Note: you must make sure you don’t get any moisture in any of the opening like the speaker or mic as it may damage those components.

Toddy Cloths are a fantastic microfiber product, as these microfiber cloths are dual sided (microfiber on one side to clean and a distinctively patterned silky microfiber on the other to polish), reusable and they contain AEGIS Microbe Shield technology, which adds an antimicrobial coating preventing the build up of mold and mildew.

iklearCleaning Fluid

If you feel as though you need something a little bit more intense than water, there are several products in the market that have been developed for cleaning touchscreens.

A great cleaning product for touchscreens is something like iKlear Apple Polish, which not only gives your device a great clean, but it also doesn’t contain any ammonia or alcohol. These chemicals can actually eat away at the special coating found on many screens (such as on the iPad and iPhone), which is why using household cleaning products like Windex is a big no-no.

Cyber CleanCleaning Compound

Crumbs, spilled drinks and of course dust commonly settle into hard to reach nooks and crannies (e.g. keyboards), which contributes to a build up of bacteria.

It is almost impossible to get of these using a cloth, which is where a cleaning compound such as Cyber Clean Home & Office comes in handy!

This product is a natural, biodegradable cleaning compound (essentially like a ball of Playdoh), which you can use to pick up dirt, dust and grime and disinfect your devices. According to their website, Cyber Clean eliminate’s more than 99% of germs, which for the health conscious among you is a pretty good statistic.

The best thing about this product is that you can use it on any electronics or sensitive component parts without damaging them, while getting into those hard to reach places.

 

589787-miniature-rumbaRobot Vacuum

If you want to go really high tech, why not have a robot clean your screen for you?

The Auto Mee S Smartphone and Tablet cleaning robotic vacuum from Takara Tomy can clean a smartphone screen in four minutes and a tablet in eight minutes (according to Gizmodo). The robotic vacuum uses a pair of rotating cleaning pads on the underside to rid a display of dust and fingerprints, and like its larger, house cleaning siblings, uses sensors to direct it to change direction when it reaches an edge.

violight-cell-phone-sanitizerViolight UV Cell Phone Sanitizer

For those of you after extreme germ termination, you can get a UV cell phone sanitizer that blasts the germs away.

Available from Amazon, the Violight UV Cell Phone Sanitizer uses UV rays (which appear as a pulsating blue light strip) to eliminate 99% of germs and bacteria on your phone. All you have to do is place your phone in the battery operated unit and off it goes! It only takes three minutes to zap all of the germs away and it can be used on other devices and accessories such as MP3 players, earbuds etc.