How to fix an Unresponsive iPhone Home Button [Electrical Contact Cleaner]

iphone home buttonIt’s been a while since I bought my iPhone 4 and, in spite of its older brother 3G, its Home Button started feeling the weight of millions of clicks per day.

Long story short: using the Home Button’s gestures became a real pain in the… a real pain.

Luckly I remembered of having read a post on lifehacker about  this “brave” designer — Khoi Vinh — who successfully applied WD-40 to his iPhone 4’s Home Button, bringing it to a new life.

Marvellous! And since I started having the same problem, I decided to give the same therapy to my iPhone, although I reminded that WD-40 is not intended to be used for electrical devices. As usual Google has been my friend and I found some folks who tried the WD-40 method and got mixed results: the lucky ones got their Home Button back and lived happily ever after while the rest got a short-term improvement which constantly required newer applications.

Why? Probably because WD-40, as mentioned before, is not made for electrical devices, its job it to loosen parts and to keep them lubricated. To achieve this it does not evaporate rapidly and it keeps the sprayed surface oiled eventually collecting bucket-loads of dust.

That’s why I deferred the WD-40 solution and sided for a simple Electrical Contact Cleaner which, for the records, is a  purposely made for removing oxidation and dust from electrical contacts.

The application is simple:

  1. Turn off the iPhone;
  2. Spray a little amount of solution directly on the Home Button making sure the solution reaches the border of the button;
  3. Press and release the button a dozen times, letting the liquid penetrate beneath the cover and under the button;
  4. Clean the button from the remaining solution with a dry cloth;
  5. Power on the device and check the renewed responsiveness of your Home Button.

If you’re not satisfied, you can repeat the process or recalibrate the button:

  1. Open a stock device app (like Weather, Stocks, etc.);
  2. Press the Power Button until you get the “Slide to power off” screen;
  3. Press the Home Button until your return back to home screen.

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