Water is the bane of electronic equipment, and Apple’s limited warranty, like most others, excludes liquid damage. This is true even for water-resistant goods such as the iPhone and Apple Watch, which feature Liquid Contact indicators that change color when exposed to water.
According to 9to5Mac, Apple now has an additional weapon in its armory for detecting water in Mac USB-C connections. The site discovered a new system daemon called liquid detection in the current edition of macOS, Sonoma 14.1, that operates in the background and collects liquid detection analysis from your Mac’s USB-C connections.
It’s called a Liquid Detection and Corrosion Mitigation Daemon, and if you’ve ever tried to plug in your iPhone after a rainy walk, you’ve probably seen something similar. The phone will notify you that water has been detected in the charging port and that you must unplug it immediately to avoid harm.
However, it appears that this is primarily for Apple’s advantage. According to the site, the coding indicates that it is only used for analytics and not end-user functions – at least for the time being.
Apple may activate an alert function in the future to warn customers to unplug, but for the time being, it seems more likely that the data collected by this daemon will be used for technicians to determine whether a Mac is eligible for free repair, the site says.
It’s unclear whether this update applies to all Macs running macOS Sonoma or whether it requires more hardware from the future M3 MacBook Pros to function.
However, just because you have an older MacBook doesn’t mean you can start using it in the bath, as Apple has additional ways to detect if your computer has come into contact with water. On the company’s own website, it states that Mac laptop computers and some Apple wired and wireless keyboards have Liquid Contact Indicators (LCI) to help determine if these products have been exposed to liquid.
Of course, the chances of getting your MacBook wet are far fewer than those of your phone or watch, because most people don’t take their computers on rainy walks or runs.
Nonetheless, if you enjoy living on the wild side, you may want to consider purchasing AppleCare Plus for your Mac to lower costs in the event of unintentional damage. Take it from someone who once spilled rum and coke on their old MacBook Pro: even a simple keyboard repair can be costly, and if liquid gets into the motherboard, all bets are off.
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