The Bheestie Bag saved a waterlogged iPod Touch and a Blackberry. Read all about it here.

Summertime means swimming pools, boating parties, and water sports. It’s fun, fun, fun. There is, however, one problem. The proliferation of portable electronic devices means that more and more of these devices come in contact with the water that is the focus of many of our summer activities. As you know, water is the archenemy of portable electronic devices. One dip in the pool, the toilet, or the lake and these expensive devices often stop working completely.

That is exactly what happened in my family this summer. Luckily, however, I found a product that became my knight in shining armor.

Those of you who follow me on my website know that I review a lot of products including everything from printers to cameras to high tech novelty devices. A few months ago a company called “BHEESTIE” sent me a small (6” x 9” x 3.25”) silver Mylar bag. Called the Bheestie bag, it was labeled “An innovative system that draws moisture out of your personal electronics.” I put it on the shelf and didn’t give it another thought.

That is, I didn’t give it another thought until my 9-year-old granddaughter told me she had dropped her iPod touch into a pool of water at a small fountain near her home. She cried when she told me that it simply wouldn’t work anymore. I didn’t hear about this incident until four days after it happened, so I really didn’t think that the Bheestie bag would work, but I decided to give it a try anyway. When I opened the bag I found that it contained only two small, 2” x 4” bags of blue and white beads. Bheestie says that these are special molecular sieve desiccant beads. To me, there was nothing special about them. As a matter of fact, I was really disappointed when I first saw the contents of the Bheestie bag and didn’t think for a minute that it would actually work.

However, looking at the sad face of my granddaughter, I knew it was worth a try. We put the iPod into the bag and sealed it shut. We let it sit for three days. When we removed the iPod, it still didn’t turn on, so we charged it up and low and behold, it worked perfectly. I was quite surprised, and needless to say, my granddaughter was thrilled.

Before I got a chance to think about this first “miracle recovery”, my family was faced with another accident. While having a fun day at the lake, my son’s Blackberry took an inadvertent dip in the water. When we got it back to shore, we found it was completely waterlogged. So the Blackberry went into the Bheestie bag. We took it out a little less than two days later and remarkably, it turned on without a problem. The center button of the scroll wheel doesn’t work well, but everything else was in perfect working condition.

I was amazed. I have been told, however, that rice also works to dry out electronic equipment, so I did a little experiment. I dropped an old cell phone that was still in working condition into a bowl of water. I let it sit for about 5 minutes, and then removed it. Of course, it did not work when it was removed from the water. I packed it into a plastic bag filled with dry rice and let it stand for three days. It still didn’t work. I put it in the Bheestie bag for three days and it worked again.

That’s three for three and it doesn’t get much better than that. It is obvious that the Bheestie bag is reusable. The Bheestie bag website (www.beestie.com) says that the blue beads will turn gray when the beads have lost their ability to absorb water. The beads in my bag are still blue, so I’ll be keeping it on hand for any further emergencies.

The Bheestie bag sells for $20 on the Bheestie website or about $18 on Amazon. I find that a bit overpriced for a Mylar bag with a few beads in it. Yet, it saved several hundreds of dollars in equipment for me. So I will say that if you will be around water a lot this summer, you have kids who use portable electronic, or you are just a bit klutzy, it might be a good idea to keep one on the shelf as an insurance policy. My special note to the Bheestie Company is this: If you can lower the price to about $10, I would tell everyone to buy one to have it handy just in case they need it.