This $6 dirt-cheap solution keeps my phone’s...

Pocket-lint. Aside from being the very best source for all things tech, it serves double duty in our pockets, wreaking perpetual havoc on our smartphone’s

USB-C ports
. Throughout the years, and despite my best efforts to mitigate the issue, several of my well-worn smartphones have succumbed to crud-filled charging ports. On my

Galaxy S20
in particular, it reached a point where my USB-C cables would simply fall out of the device, owing to the loose connection caused by tightly-packed dust particles and fabric fibers.

Before you say it, I’m all too aware of the fact that I can

clean out my phone’s charging port
with a bit of isopropyl rubbing alcohol, a needle, and some time and patience. The problem is that I lack patience, and I don’t have a particularly steady hand, either. That’s how I ended up frying my S20’s charging port altogether — a skill issue, to be sure, but an issue nonetheless.

After this unfortunate occurrence, I decided to pivot in a different direction entirely. I asked myself how I could possibly mitigate the root cause of my pocket-lint-packed troubles. As it turns out, cleaning out the dust and debris in my pockets is a losing battle. After some research and additional ponderance on the matter, I eventually settled on this game-changing $6 solution, instead.

Anti-dust plugs are the solution to my woes

USB-C dust plugs are economical, effective, and ingenious

Look, I know I might be raising an eyebrow or two in saying this, but I genuinely believe the 50-pack of USB Type-C dust plugs I purchased from Amazon is the best $6 investment I’ve made in years. Aside from being a highly cost-effective solution to the age-old problem of lint-infested charging ports, they provide just a little bit of additional insurance and peace of mind for anal-retentive folks like myself.

Despite modern smartphones offering official

IP ratings for dust and water ingress protection
, I can’t help but feel like my phone is safer when sporting its dust plug. I was initially skeptical whether the plugs would form a tight seal, or if they’d end up falling out or causing any other issues in practice. Thankfully, in my experience, they fit snug as a glove, they stay put, and they only come away when deliberately removing them from my phone’s port.

If you’re a wired phone charging kind of person, then this solution probably isn’t for you. I can’t imagine the annoyance of inserting and removing a dust plug each and every day, or even multiple times a day. For me,

as a wireless charging Qi2 evangelist
, keeping my phone’s USB-C port obfuscated provides no additional friction in my day-to-day life. I only ever remove the plug in the odd circumstance where I’m transferring files to my PC, performing a manual backup, or plugging in a USB-C peripheral.

What I particularly love about the set of dust plugs I purchased is that they’re inconspicuous. They don’t jut out of my phone much at all, they’re barely visible when out and about, and, if I accidentally lose one, I have several dozen others sitting idly at home. I have so many kicking around, in fact, that I’ve even gone ahead and plugged up the USB-C ports on my

external SSDs
for good measure, too.

All of this has got me thinking: why don’t USB-C ports feature built-in lint barriers at the hardware specification level? I certainly don’t want to return to the days of the

Galaxy S5
, with its finicky and disruptive charging port cover, but my version of gadget nirvana certainly includes USB-C devices with unobtrusive built-in dust and lint shutters. I doubt we’ll see such a thing hit the mainstream anytime soon, and so I’ll continue to hoard my collection of dust plugs for the sake of my lint-adverse sanity.

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