Daring Tech Trick: Clean Your Electronics Safely Using a Dishwasher

It’s important to clean all of your tech gear regularly. That may be obvious for PC towers and keyboards, which attract a lot of dust and affect performance, but perhaps less so for things like desk mats and smartwatch bands .

But it can be a pain to clean some things. I can use soap, water, and Clorox wipes all day on my desk mat and wrist rest, but they never look any better (though the part is this is my fault for choosing pastel-colored accessories). Other things, like headphone pads , can just be difficult to clean in general.

The solution? Throw them in the dishwasher!

Putting Things in the Dishwasher is Just More Efficient

It sounds ridiculous to put PC accessories in the dishwasher to clean them, but it works well, provided you keep a few things in mind. Dishwashers are good at deep-cleaning your dishes and cutlery, but unless you set them to a high heat or heavy setting, they’ll be more gentle than a washing machine when it comes to cleaning.

Every dishwasher is different, though, and I tested it first with a wrist rest I planned on throwing out anyway. My main concern was that the heat of the water would damage or melt the rubber on the bottom, but it was all intact when I checked. It was also notably cleaner, though I needed to wait a day or two for it to fully dry.

All of the mousepads and wrist rests I threw in the dishwasher came out fine and noticeably cleaner—though ultimately, there’s only so much you can do to keep light-colored accessories bright and clean looking after years of use, so my pink desk mat still had the marks my mouse made on it after cleaning it.

My headphone pads also came out fine, but only then did I realize that maybe I shouldn’t have taken them off in the first place, as the fragile plastic to attach the pads cracked when I tried to put them back on. This wasn’t the fault of the dishwasher, however.

In the end, all of these accessories I threw in the dishwasher would have gone into the trash anyway, but now, I can get more life out of them before they’re too damaged or grungy looking to save.

Don’t Put Everything in There, Though

This may go without saying, but you can’t throw all your stuff into the dishwasher. Anything with actual electronic components can be ruined when coming into contact with that much water—although you can try with components like motherboards if you’re feeling brave. Alternatively, you can break something like a keyboard apart and put all the plastic components in there, but with that amount of effort, it’ll be easier to clean it by hand .

But if you have a non-electronic tech accessory you’re thinking of replacing, see if a quick wash can help it look great again.