How to use it
- Take off any case that covers the speaker and disconnect Bluetooth headphones, so the tone plays from the phone itself.
- Hold the phone with the speaker grille facing down, so gravity helps any water out.
- Set the phone’s volume to about half, then press Play on the 165 Hz tone above. You should hear a low hum, sometimes with a buzz while water is still in the grille.
- Play it for up to 30 seconds, then stop and wipe off any drops with a lint-free cloth. Raise the volume a little only if you can barely hear the tone.
- Stop straight away if the sound crackles, rattles harshly or distorts: that is the speaker being driven too hard, and more volume or more time won’t help.
To play the tone with the screen off, download the 30-second WAV and open it from your files app.
What Apple says about a wet iPhone
Apple doesn’t offer a tone for iPhone. Its support article on splash and water resistance (as of October 2026) says to check whether water is in the speaker by placing the iPhone speaker side down on a lint-free cloth, and notes that water in the port might degrade speaker or microphone performance until it completely evaporates. To dry the phone, Apple says to tap it gently against your hand with the Lightning or USB-C connector facing down, leave it somewhere dry with airflow or in front of a fan blowing cool air into the connector, not to use an external heat source or put anything like a cotton swab into the connector, and to wait at least 5 hours before charging. It also notes that water resistance can decrease with normal wear, and that liquid damage isn’t covered by its warranty.
So the dependable fix is time: speaker down, dry air, no heat. A tone is at most a gentle extra for drops sitting in the grille.
When the sound doesn’t come back
If the speaker still sounds muffled after the phone has had a day to dry, the problem may be inside rather than in the grille. Test it with the speaker test, and contact the maker’s support if it stays quiet or distorted.