Electronics in cold weather?

I'm ging to try climb Denali mid May and wondering if my kindle paperwhite or iPhone (photos/music/books) will function or die. Thanks

You will be fine. Be mindful of your Kindle and if you aren't using it keep it in down or something. The phone should be (mostly) ok. Don't rely on it for GPS or anything over 17,000'

Also - iPod's with a traditional disk hard drive will fail above 4000m or so.

You might know this but I'll write it anyway..

I've found the biggest drain on my phones battery comes from searching for a signal more than the cold. Switch the phone to airplane mode and keep it in a warm pocket.

Bill Kirby wrote: You might know this but I'll write it anyway.. I've found the biggest drain on my phones battery comes from searching for a signal more than the cold. Switch the phone to airplane mode and keep it in a warm pocket.

Electronics feel great been exposed to cold. Few things to remember:

1. LCD screens are got frozen. Somewhere about -40 (FYI, -40F equals to -40C, so there is no need to specify the scale) LCD screens are got completely frozen so you won't have any visual feedback from your electronic devices with LCD screens.

2. Cold air is dry, hot air is wet. -20C (roughly 0F) 100% humid air contains the same amount of water as +20C (rougly +70F) air at 5% of humidity. Thus when entering a warm place isolate your electronics from (wet) warm air. Just put it in a plastic bag, close it, and wait until everything inside got warm. Otherwise a contact between warm wet air and cold devices creates a water layer on your electronics components which could (most likely should) destroy your devices.

3. Batteries hate cold. Keep your batteries in an inner pocket. *Do not* store your electronic devices in your inner pocket. It will destroy 'em (ref. #2).

Thanks for the advice, Merry Christmas

And remember, if it is really cold don't lick the metal case :)

A trick we use up here a lot is to tape hand warmer packets to the battery side of the device. Some of the warmers have adhesive on them.
We use this for filming a lot when the camera has to stay out in the cold.

I brought an iPod Touch on my West Butt trip a few years ago. It was nice to have for music and notes, but the battery wouldn't have lasted the whole trip. I also brought a mini solar charger for it, which was plenty to top off the battery on sunny days (once at the 14k camp while acclimating). I didn't have any issues with the device, even up to the 17k camp, and it still works today. Like others have mentioned, keep the battery warm and consider the humidity of your device. Have fun, Merry Christmas!

M Sprague wrote:And remember, if it is really cold don't lick the metal case :)