Have you ever made an accidental discovery while doing something on purpose? It’s like finding your extra pair of glasses when you’re searching for the remote. Or better, like finding emergency cash in an old purse. Boom!

While doing the latest of online stunts – the bottle flipping challenge – Jordan Random happened across a useful phone hack. Many of history’s great inventions happened by unplanned chance, such as Velcro, X-rays, and the microwave. Jordan’s is right up there.

He poses the question: have you ever been stuck with 3G and without the 4G LTE icon? Why yes, I have. No one deserves to have choppy service considering the rates for some of these plans, yet sometimes we just accept it. But 3G, you are killing us softly with your unreliability. Delayed texts, dropped calls, broken up voices, and no internet is not what we want.

In this clip, Jordan shows us how to rig up one possible solution. An ordinary bottle of water became a cell phone signal booster by doing absolutely nothing but standing still. Place your phone on a flat surface and sit a bottle of water above its top. Next, switch your phone to airplane mode, which will disable WiFi and block any cell signals.

You’ll leave it on for just 3 to 4 seconds before turning airplane mode back off. At this point, your phone should start searching for a signal again. Using airplane mode actually helps your phone seek out a closer tower, improving call clarity. If you don’t have airplane mode on your phone, you can power it off and back on instead, rebooting the signal.

See with your own eyes what happened to Jordan’s phone signal when he conducted this test. This technique could be helpful if you’re in an emergency situation, out in the boonies without reception, or lost in the woods with nothing close by except a cottage made of candy.

What’s weird is that water is typically known to cause bad reception for cell phones. How this works is a mystery, but there could be any number of factors interfering with cell phone signals in the first place, including distance from a tower.

Other reasons for little to no reception include landscape features like hills, trees, or mountains, being outside of the coverage zone for your carrier, and indoor conditions. If you are in a structure made of metal or concrete, more than likely you’ll encounter a weaker signal or be stuck in a dead zone. Parking decks are notorious for this. Being inside a car can hamper cell phone signals too.

Understanding the cause of your low signal can help you determine a good fix. And while we don’t know what the outcome of Jordan’s bottle flipping endeavor was, this hack works for him and could work for you too. Just be sure to keep an extra bottle of water with you!

What do you think of Jordan’s water bottle discovery? Would you try this hack if you were in a jam? Tell us in the comments!