Last Updated on February 3, 2026 by Giorgia Guazzarotti
I hear you: who wants to lie fr twenty minutes in a tanning booths, staring at the sterile walls, with nothing to do? Boring as hell. So the question comes up all the time: can you bring your phone in a tanning bed? You can keep yourself busy (and, if you’re as paranoid as me, don’t worry someone may steal it…). And honestly, the answer isn’t as straightforward as you’d think. Will the ultraviolet light interfere with your tan? Can your phone be ruined in a tanning booth? Here’s everything I found out about what happens when phones meet tanning beds, and whether it’s actually worth the risk.
Can The Heat Of A Tanning Session Damage Your Phone?
This is where it gets frustrating, because there’s basically no real research on this. Like, scientists haven’t exactly been lining up to study what happens to iPhones in tanning beds. Most of what’s out there is just tanning salons giving advice or random people on forums saying “yeah I did it and my phone was fine” or “my screen got weird after.”
Here’s what we know for sure: Tanning beds get to around 102°F, which is pretty toasty. Phones are supposed to work fine between 32°F and 95°F, so you’re already outside the safe zone. They can handle being hot for a little while without dying immediately, but if you’re doing this regularly, you’re probably shortening your battery life and maybe messing with the screen or other stuff inside. It’s the kind of damage that sneaks up on you rather than happening all at once. You’ve been warned.
Eye Protection In Tanning Booths
Everyone’s worried about their phone getting damaged, which I get. I wouldn’t want mine ruined for the sake of a tan either (although tanning booths can kill you, so the phone is the least of my concerns really…). But here’s what actually matters more: a lot of people skip wearing eye protection when they bring their phones into tanning beds, and that’s genuinely dangerous.
Tanning salons give you those protective goggles for a good reason: even short exposure times in a tanning booth can blast your eyes with intense UV radiation. The ultraviolet radiation from tanning beds, both UVA rays and UVB rays, can damage your eyes in ways that aren’t immediately obvious but add up over time. Photokeratitis is basically a sunburn on your cornea, and it hurts like crazy. Long term, you’re looking at increased risk of cataracts and other vision problems nobody wants to deal with.
The right thing to do is wear the goggles and use your phone at the same time, but let’s be real, most people don’t. They either find it annoying to look at a screen through protective eyewear, or they’re worried about getting tan lines around their eyes (the whole “raccoon eyes” thing), so they just don’t wear them. And that’s a really bad idea.
Where Should You Even Put Your Phone?
Even if you’re not worried about the UV or the heat, there’s just the basic awkwardness of it. Where do you put your phone? Electronic devices weren’t exactly designed with tanning in mind, and the ergonomic design of a phone doesn’t really work for lying flat in a tanning bed trying to scroll through stuff. Some people rest it on their chest or stomach, which means it’s sitting right on skin that’s getting blasted with UV rays. Others try holding it above their face, which is uncomfortable and also kind of defeats the point of lying down to relax. Plus, tanning beds, especially high pressure ones, generate a ton of heat. Batteries really don’t like heat. The lithium-ion batteries in basically every modern phone degrade faster when they get hot repeatedly. One session probably won’t kill it, but do it enough times and you’re definitely shortening how long your battery lasts.
Best Alternatives
Most people who want to bring their phone into a tanning bed aren’t doing it because they desperately need to answer emails. They’re just bored. Lying still for fifteen or twenty minutes with nothing to do feels like wasted time when you’re used to always having something to look at or listen to.
The best way around this, according to tanning salons that actually care about making session times less awful, is just using music. A lot of tanning booths have built-in speakers or bluetooth now, so you can connect your phone from outside the bed and listen to your own music without actually bringing the device in. You get entertainment without the heat, no UV risk to the phone, and you can actually wear eye protection like you’re supposed to.
If you’re really set on having your phone in there, I guess putting it in a protective case and keeping it as far from the UV light as possible would help. But honestly, is it worth it? Especially when you’re basically guaranteeing you won’t protect your eyes properly just so you can scroll through TikTok or whatever.
Should You Even Go For Indoor Tanning?
Stepping away from the phone situation entirely, is indoor tanning even a great way to get the look people are going for? The UV damage happens to all skin types, though lighter skin definitely burns and gets irritated more easily. That healthy glow everyone’s after is actually your skin being damaged and trying to protect itself by making more melanin. It’s a natural process, sure, but natural doesn’t automatically mean healthy.
If it’s for special occasions and you want that bronze look, spray tans exist and they’re genuinely safer. No UV exposure means no increased risk of skin cancer, no eye damage, no health risks beyond maybe getting a streaky application if the person doing it isn’t great at it. The color comes from a chemical reaction with dead skin cells on the surface, not from melanin deep in your skin reacting to damage, so it’s purely cosmetic.
Drinking plenty of water, taking care of your skin, and protecting it from unnecessary sun exposure are all better for skin health long term than regular tanning sessions. Even tanning experts who care more about skin health than aesthetics will say the same thing – there’s no amount of UV radiation that’s actually good for your skin, whether it’s coming from a tanning salon or from being outside.
The Bottom Line
Should you actually bring your phone with you in a tanning bed? Technically nobody’s stopping you from bringing your cell phone into a tanning bed. But should you? Probably not. The heat could mess with your battery over time, the UV exposure might break down stuff inside the phone eventually, and most importantly, you’re putting your eyes at risk too if you’re not using the google. The science on phones in tanning beds is pretty much nonexistent, but the science on what UV radiation does to skin is extremely clear. Taking care of your skin health means cutting down on UV damage wherever you can, and taking care of your phone means keeping it out of hot environments with a bunch of radiation. Both of those things point the same direction – leave the phone outside the tanning booth and just deal with being bored for twenty minutes.
