When it comes to a perfect place for germs, bacteria, and viruses to breed, few could do better than your tech devices. Smooth, sleek plastic, glass, and metal combine to create high-touch surfaces with plenty of hard-to-clean nooks and crannies. But there’s also a perfect way to clean your tech: germicidal UVC light.
A perfect example of this is our phones. We carry them with us at all times: handling them, passing them to friends and family, placing them on all kinds of other surfaces without even thinking about it. Yet, we rarely clean them because not only does a quick wipe with the hem of our t-shirt give us the appearance of cleanliness, the previous gadgetry inside means that it’s not like we can rinse them off in the sink.
This is where UVC represents a huge leap in how we take control of cleaning our tech.
How Germicidal UVC Works
When it comes to cleaning our high-tech devices, it should only make sense that we use a high-tech solution. Germicidal UVC light is this solution.
By harnessing a small subset of the UV spectrum (280nm-100nm) UVC light represents a uniquely germicidal form of light that literally scrambled the very DNA that allows germs and bacteria to not only exist but proliferate. Viruses can’t produce on their own, but they can pass down that genetic material: their DNA (or RNA). So they reproduce by finding cells and injecting their DNA into them, allowing them to infect that cell and continue along as that cell reproduces over and over. It’s what viruses and bacteria pass on, and what UV-C light effectively does is scramble these strands, stopping contamination in its tracks.
And it’s effective, in laboratory testing, germicidal UVC light has been found to stop 99.9% of the things that can make us sick in their tracks, and it does it all without the use of harsh chemical cleaners or solvents.
Traditional Cleaning Doesn’t Cut It
When it comes to our high-tech devices, we may have gotten really good at using them, but we’re not so hot when it comes to cleaning them. Just think about it: we use these items every day, we touch them, sweat on them, pass them to friends and family, take them to the office and the bathroom. They’re always with us, from when we wake up to when we go to sleep.
But they’re germ magnets.
Sure, we may wipe dust and fingerprints off them, or the dirt we can see, but most of us never give our laptops, phones, remotes, etc. a good cleaning.
Part of the reason we don’t clean our devices that often is because they don’t get dirty in the way that typically motivates us to get scrubbing: they don’t accumulate a lot of visible dirt on their surfaces. When it comes to our devices their filthiness stems from the unseen unclean of germs, bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Combine this with the fact that they’re also typically hard to clean well and it’s a perfect storm of germ-friendly conditions.
And when it comes to actually cleaning them, traditional cleaning products are woefully inadequate: often employing moisture and harsh chemicals that can take a toll on our precious and costly devices over time.
Germicidal UVC Benefits
This is where UVC light offers countless benefits when it comes to cleaning your electronic devices: and we’re not just talking phones. Think about remote starter car keys, earbuds, video game controllers, tv remotes, laptops, the list of devices that we use throughout the day but fail to clean is endless. Constantly wiping these items down with traditional cleaning products becomes time-consuming, costly, and ultimately wasteful.
Efficiency:
One of the many benefits of using UVC light to clean our devices is that it’s an extremely efficient way to get things clean. Combining high-powered, long-lasting lithium-ion batteries with ultra-efficient LED bulbs, UVC lights can provide powerful cleaning capabilities for years and years after purchase, with no replacement parts required. Aside from the energy used to charge it, there’s almost no cost to operating a UVC device.
Sustainability:
Though ultimately every cleaning device is going to have some sustainability issues – a UVC sterilizer has to be made after all – many traditional cleaning products represent a messy and wasteful part of our lives. A person dedicated to keeping their laptop and phone clean using chemical wipes would have to go through at least several a day; day-in, day-out. This not only amounts to a substantial expense over the life of a product but also represents a lot of product left in the landfills. Beyond the actual manufacturing of the device, a UVC light produces no waste or chemical byproducts from its use.
Portability:
Another benefit of UVC lights is their portability. Thanks to the efficient technologies they employ – Lithium-ion batteries and LED bulbs – they can fit in the palm of your hand. And much like our tech, we all know that the product we use is the product that’s easy to use. With a quick wave of a WANDERCLEAN UVC wand, your devices are safe to use. There is no sound, smell, or pesky drying time. This makes it perfect for discreetly sterilizing communal electronics or touch interfaces at offices or public places of business.
Lack of Residue/Chemicals:
An obvious benefit of using UVC light to disinfect items is that you don’t have to worry about leaving residue all over your high-tech – and expensive – stuff. In fact, though we may not realize it, most cleaning products like wipes are ones where you’re actually supposed to wipe the surface clean AFTER you clean it. These are not ‘evaporative’ products – which contain high alcohol content – and leave behind a chemical layer that you do not want to be coming into contact with every time you touch your respective device.
A quick pass with a germicidal UVC light wand leaves no residue whatsoever and achieves the much-vaunted benchmark of killing 99.9% of germs. Because it’s a ‘no-touch’ way of cleaning, it’s ideal for electronics in that it doesn’t potentially compromise them with moisture, and helps us avoid unintentional contamination through contact during the cleaning process itself.
High-Tech Products Need A High-Tech Solution
Ultimately, germicidal UVC light as a way to sterilize our high-tech items is a field-proven technology that’s finally finding its way into the home. It only makes sense that after decades of bringing technology into so many aspects of our lives, we’ve done so with cleaning in the form of using UVC light.
It’s the perfect solution for taking care of some of the most important and expensive items that we rely on every day, providing a complete clean without the use of wasteful, costly, and messy chemical-based cleaners.
