Everyone knows water and electronics don't mix. This is the reason why products like the excellent Sony Experia ZR advertise a water resistant/proof body while digital camera casings for underwater photography have been around for at least a decade now.
Around 2004, I went on a wooden raft trip in Northern Philippines with a bunch of friends. My best buddy (Hi Joe!) forgot to take out his Motorola cellphone from his pocket. We were repeatedly doused under an ice cold waterfall at the end of the river. A Japanese companion, excited by the severe drenching we went through, convinced our guide to bring us back under the waterfall four more times until we had to huddle inside the cave for warmth. My buddy finally discovered his mistake and his poor waterlogged phone when he emptied his pockets. He asked me if I could get it to work and I shook my head adamantly, telling him impurities from the water and moisture would've ruined the circuit board. I advised him to get a new one. A week after the trip, Joe was toting the same phone and it was working as usual. I asked him who repaired the cellphone and he just shook his head - he had just left it to dry for a few days and recharged the batteries.
Canon was one of the first manufacturers to provide a waterproof case for their cameras.
Obviously, the incident with the waterfall could have been a fluke. There are tons of tips online on how to revive wet electronic devices. Many people swear by the rice method, which involves burying your wet cellphone in a bucket of rice so the rice absorbs all the moisture. I've been lucky enough to have never had to troubleshoot or work with devices that were mistakenly submerged on purpose. More recently, however, an arrogant co-worker surreptitiously poured a small cup of water underneath the prototype motherboard I was working on while I was away. He didn't pour the fluid over the naked PCB, but on the base so I wouldn't notice it when I arrived at my worktable. The motherboard was already set up with a power supply, fan, processor and DDR3 memory so I was surprised when the system would power up and then die after a few seconds. I lifted the board and saw at least three tablespoons of water clinging to the base of the board. Using a piece of non-static cloth, I wiped off the excess moisture and let the board dry. The motherboard soon powered up and I went about my work.
Spidey replaced his old Leica camera from the 60s with a more durable (and cheap) one he designed for his belt camera in the 80s . . . which helped because he repeatedly got wet even when didn't fight losers like Hydro-Man. Scan from Amazing Spider-Man #319 (1989)
Manufacturing procedures have changed drastically over the years but the principles behind electronics remain the same. Moreover, hardware components have become even more resilient despite all the videos in YouTube of consumers with too much disposable income using firearms to blow up their devices or exposing them to ridiculous durability tests. Should you invest in more waterproof devices? Unless you're that careless about your consumer electronics and repeatedly drop your Kobo Glo in the toilet, then just invest in features that you really find useful instead.
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