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How To Keep Your Phone Cool In A Hot Car

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If you are parking your car during hot weather, the inside of the vehicle can reach extreme temperatures. This guide will explain how to keep your phone cool in a hot car to prevent damage.

We will also discuss how to keep your phone from overheating while driving in hot conditions.

Sometimes leaving your cell phone in a hot car is unavoidable and you want to make sure that it doesn’t suffer. It’s possible to receive an overheat warning from an iPhone if it’s been in a very hot vehicle. Damage can also occur to the battery.

It’s important to know how to protect your cell phone in a hot car to prevent overheating.

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Turn off your phone

Turning your phone off will stop the extra heat generated by its function and also reduce the amount of damage that may be caused by heat exposure. If you are using your phone while driving in the heat, scroll down to see tips related to that.

Use a phone cooler

Believe it or not, you can now buy a device that attaches to your cell phone to keep it cool. You can buy them on Amazon and they are called phone coolers. Go ahead and check it out if you are interested.

It also has a mount to use in the car!

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Get an Insulated Phone Case

An insulated phone case helps protect your device from overheating in a hot car by reflecting and dissipating heat away from the phone. This can prevent unexpected shutdowns and potential heat-induced damage, maintaining your phone’s optimal operating temperature.

It’s also very useful for places like the beach or when outdoors in high temperatures.

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Use a car sunshade

A car sunshade is an excellent way to keep the overall temperature of your vehicle down. Increasing temperatures inside the car are the reason why there is the potential for damage in the first place. Grab a cheap car sunshade from Amazon for the future. This will also make your car more comfortable when you return to it!

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Store your phone in the trunk

The cabin of the car will get hotter due to the sunlight penetrating the windows and heating up the air. The temperature in the trunk will usually significantly lag that of the main cabin and warm up significantly slower due to lack of sunlight penetration.

Put your phone in a cooler

A simple car cooler is a cheap storage option for your phone if you need to leave it in a hot car. Another option is to use an insulated lunchbox of some kind. When you insulate your device, you are protecting it from rising external temperatures.

Anything with insulative properties that isn’t a fire risk is good. You don’t need to put ice in the cooler. Putting your device inside an empty cooler and storing it in the trunk or under the seat should be just fine.

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Keep it out of direct sunlight

Do not put the device in direct sunlight as this will worsen the heat exposure. If you store your phone in a box then make sure the box is stored out of the sunlight. Do not leave it in the passenger compartment unless really necessary!

Open the windows slightly

If you are not too concerned about security then you could leave the windows open slightly to allow hot air to escape. This will have a significant difference on the temperature inside of the car but does make your vehicle more vulnerable to entry by thieves.

Park in the shade

Parking in the shade will keep your vehicle out of direct sunlight. This should reduce the temperature of the interior significantly even on a very hot day. Avoid putting your phone in the glovebox as this can get much hotter than the trunk of your vehicle.

Store your phone as low as possible

If you do store your phone in the cabin, place it under one of the seats. Heat rises so storing the phone under the seat is a great option since this should be the coolest area of the cabin.

Do not turn the phone on when it is still hot

If you return to your car and your device is very hot, do not turn it on before it has been able to cool down. This can cause damage to your cell phone! A good way to cool your phone down is to put it on a phone mount over the A/C vent and blase it with cool air.

If you are driving, these next tips are to keep your cell phone cool during a road trip.

Mount your phone on an air vent if driving

If you are driving and need to keep your phone cool, the direct sunlight can make that really hard. If you are using apps such as Spotify or Google Maps then this can lead to your cell phone getting too hot.

One solution to this is to use a car phone mount like this one which attaches to the air vents. This means your A/C or fan can cool the phone down. If you can also keep the phone out of the sunlight this is even better!

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Avoid charging the phone while driving

If your phone is plugged into the in-car charger then it will be operating at a higher temperature than usual. So unplugging it is a great way to help keep the phone cool in your hot car.

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Block the sun using a cloth

If it’s not possible to keep your cell phone away due to it being required for navigation, see if you can use a cloth to block the sunlight. You can use a piece of fabric or something which can drape over the phone to protect it from direct sunlight.

Turn off Bluetooth and shutdown apps

Turn off as many processes and apps as possible. This will reduce the temperature of your cell phone. Bluetooth and internet usage can be real culprits for heating up your phone. The harder the cell phone is working the hotter it is likely to be!

Disclosure: Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links. This means I earn a commission if you make a qualifying purchase, but this is at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting The Road Trip Expert.

Image of Iain The Founder Of The Road Trip Expert

Iain Salter

Founder & Editor of The Road Trip Expert

Iain founded The Road Trip Expert in 2019 and continues to manage the website to this day. The inspiration to start the blog came during an extensive road trip around Europe with two friends that spanned several months and involved over 25,000km of driving. He first developed a passion for backpacking in 2014 and has had the pleasure of exploring over 60 countries.

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