The winter weather can wreak havoc on your smartphone.
While many of us have them, we might not take the proper precautions and care to keep our devices protected in the cold.
"Winter is notorious for killing lithium-ion batteries," said Josh MacGown, the founder of Mobile Genius, a smartphone and tablet repair company with locations in Allentown and Bethlehem.
"A large portion of our business in the winter is snow accidents," he said.
MacGown said when you're outside, keep your phone as close to your body as possible to prevent problems.
"If it's cold and goes into a hot environment then it will cause condensation within, in the inside of the phone, which is technically water damage," he said. "You wouldn't know until it died, if someone opened it up and told you or things just started failing on the device."
If you take a spill on the ice, you may not be the only thing bumped and bruised.
MacGown said they see shattered screens and other results of mishaps.
"When you slip and fall on ice, they're coming in with more damage to the aluminum frame that the 5 and 5s is built on," he explained about certain iPhones.
If your phone shuts down because of the cold, give it some time to warm up before you try to restart it to avoid battery damage.
While it can be extremely difficult to part with your device, MacGown says to leave it inside before you go out to shovel.
"The number one mistake is people put it in their pocket and then they're shoveling snow, an hour goes by and it's time to make a phone call and there's no phone to be found," he said. "We've had customers lose their phone in January, February cleaning snow, find it in the spring and then bring it in for water damage repair."
There are cases that will protect the exposed ports on your phone for an added layer of protection.
MacGown explained what happens when snow gets in those openings.
"Most of the time it's the charging port that it goes into first which will kill the phone and then it starts going into the headphone jack and home button censors," he said.
If you do bring your phone with you outside, MacGown recommends arm bands that seal the phone.
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