With recent temperatures reaching 110 degrees, our body wasn’t the only thing heating up. Our homes. Our cars. Our patience. With each of these, we drink lots of water, turn the AC on, and try to stay cool. 

While I was at Watershed at the Gorge with thousands of others checking out great shows from Morgan Wallen, Miranda Lambert, and Kane Brown, I felt major heat coming from the pocket of my shorts. It was my iPhone, starting to burn my adductor longis. (Wow! Mav3rick using a medical term!) My inner thigh. I quickly pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, only to have it burn my fingertips. My iPhone had overheated, and was deemed useless. I ran over to one of the cooling stations and waved my iPhone in front of the fan blowing out cold air. It took a while, but it finally allowed me to login and start shooting videos on TikTok again. Whew!

But it didn’t take long for it to overheat again, and at the worst moment. We were shooting a video, interviewing Watershed Artist Frank Ray backstage of the Next From Nashville stage. Suddenly the screen went dark with that thermometer icon, stating that the “iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it”. 

Thankfully, Frank Ray was very kind and patient, despite the fact he was in a hurry to change before the concert. After a bit of cooling down, I was able to continue to shoot some video.

There are some other helpful tips to cool down your smartphone and prevent long term damage…even frying the battery.

  1. Shut the phone down completely. Let it sit for a while in a cool environment.
  2. Unplug the charging cord, battery pack, or wireless charger. Smartphones will easily heat up during the recharging process.
  3. Take off the protective case. This only keeps the heat locked in.
  4. Avoid having the phone sitting in the sunlight. keep in the shade. More on this in a moment.
  5. Don’t use the camera. Shooting videos will make the smartphone overheat more than just taking photos.
  6. Shut down all apps running in the background. You may have noticed that some games will cause your phone to heat up.
  7. Turn on airplane mode. This will help with GPS, maps, notifications, bluetooth, and the Wi-Fi not being used in the background.
  8. Don’t mount the smartphone on the car dashboard with the sun beaming down on it. A friend of mine just bought a device that mounts his iPhone to the AC vent of his truck.

Oh! One thing! I was told a few years ago by an Apple employee at the Genius Bar that if my iPhone starts overheating, “DO NOT PUT IT IN THE FREEZER!” That can cause even more damage. We’ll save that for another article.

Once your smartphone cools down, just let it sit. And if you find yourself at a music fest like Watershed, instead of pulling out your iPhone to shoot video of Jordan Davis on stage, just keep the phone in your pocket and live in the moment. Enjoy the show.

Do you have any other tips? Leave a comment below.

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