Hoverboard fires | Hacker News Reader

Hoverboard fires

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54 pointsAnimats58 comments

Hoverboard fires continue.

Underwriters' Laboratories has now announced 1) that as of Feb 2, they have a test program to certify hoverboards for not catching on fire or blowing up, and 2), all UL labels on hoverboards so far are fake.

Amazon is refusing to pay hoverboard manufacturers for their products, and is taking returns on all hoverboards. The hoverboard industry in Shentzen has collapsed.[1]

There are still daily hoverboard fire news stories.

Good technical analysis is rare so far. However, so far, the following have been reported:

- Fake Samsung batteries

- Batteries without cell-level protective devices

- Battery pack mismatched to charger, causing overcharging.

It takes about seven protective devices to make a lithium-ion battery safe. Some cells come with a small round circuit board at the end of the cell to provide protection and thermal monitoring at the cell level. Some don't. Some cells have overpressure vents. Some don't. Some have thermal fuses. Some don't. Chargers need to follow a charge curve, monitor cell temperature, and have a backup cutoff circuit to stop overcharging. (If you overcharge a LiIon cell, it will catch fire unless some safety device trips first.)

This may be the worst product launch in modern history.

And these things aren't even Internet-connected.

[1] http://qz.com/582542/chinas-makeshift-hoverboard-industry-is...

The hoverboard industry in Shentzen has collapsed.

This is a classic "market for lemons" event. People might say that there is a market for safe electric skateboards, but since consumers have no way of identifying a safe one and all the safety markings are forged, they're not going to buy one at all.

People need to bear this in mind when asking for deregulation in general. Sometimes it's necessary to remove the actively dangerous vendors from a market.

(When life gives you flammable explosive lemons, what would Cave Johnson do?)

Edit: arguably this is already happening in the consumer IoT market. The default assumption is that a product will spy on you, be uninteroperable, insecure, and vulnerable to remote-bricking by the manufacturer. Each individual product has to swim upstream this current of skepticism. Hence the joke about at least the exploding skateboards not being internet-connected.

Make explosive lemonade of course!

> When life gives you flammable explosive lemons, what would Cave Johnson do?

Well considering combustible lemons are readily available he'd fire his engineers and skip straight to "burn life's house down".

On a tangentially related subject, I ran into an old chum over the weekend who has spent the last four years living in a major city in China, and he's coming back because he says he just can't trust anything. He can't breath the air, he can't trust the water (even sealed bottled water, having seen enough sealed bottled water that was actually taken straight from the factory tap), recently some people were executed for selling plastic rice (which did exactly what you would expect to the people eating it). Regulation is so necessary. To be fair, he did make it clear that the penalty for fucking with the food supply is death.

Indeed. Public trust is an important shared resouce, and like any other shared resouce vulnerable to people who want to asset-strip it for a profit. People forget that in the West the level of general trust we enjoy is high, took a long time to build, and requires continuous engagement to maintain.

That's why incidents like Flint, MI need to be addressed with a national response, or in a few decades people will be struggling to work out where to get safe water in the US.

Even awesome, thoughtful Boosted boards catch on fire now and then. I think even with the beginning of honest alternative transport devices pushing technology to break new ground inevitably results in some teething issues that will get fixed as engineering and safety standards evolve with the benefit of hindsight. The sentiment of condemning an entire catagory of products for cheap knockoffs and slow-moving regulators is wrongheaded and dumb.

(If there were blanket bans for use, as opposed to sale, I wouldnt be suprised to see mobility device exceptions... But so far the much hooplahed NYC hoverboard ban never materialized on the street level.)

"Boosted" brand powered skateboards use lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which are inherently safer than ordinary lithium-ion batteries. The LiFePO4 chemistry doesn't have the thermal runaway problem. That was a good decision. They give up some range, but don't have fires.

Thermal runaway in LiCoO2 cells is the cause of most battery fires. Overcharging or cell overheating starts a chemical reaction that raises the temperature, which accelerates the reaction further. This continues until the battery catches fire or explodes. In battery packs, this can cascade, with one cell forcing adjacent cells into thermal runaway.

There are other safer battery technologies. The A123 Systems cells[1] don't have the thermal runaway problem and are supposedly resistant to fires due to physical damage. They pass the "nail test", where a nail is driven through the battery. Price is about 2x low-end cells from China. A hoverboard powered with those should not catch fire.

A problem with "Boosted" skateboards is that they can easily be taken over via the Bluetooth link.[2] Worse, they support over the air firmware updates. Unsigned over the air updates. There's an exploit for this, called FacePlant.

[1] http://www.a123systems.com/lifepo4-battery-cell.htm [2] http://www.wired.com/2015/08/hackers-can-seize-control-of-el...

"Arguably this is already happening in the consumer IoT market. The default assumption is that a product will spy on you, be uninteroperable, insecure, and vulnerable to remote-bricking by the manufacturer."

Maybe that's why the Internet of Things market isn't taking off. The Nest smoke detector isn't a reliable smoke detector, because it can be disabled remotely. The Samsung Internet-connected refrigerator loses functions because Google changed something and nobody takes responsibility for updating the refrigerator. The home IoT crowd is selling into a market where things are expected to work for 20 years. The startups are totally unprepared for that. (The classic HVAC companies, such as Honeywell, might get it right. The Honeywell Lyric smart thermostat has a 5 year warranty.[1] Nest, 2 years. Honeywell's WiFi enabled thermostat is round. They're not copying Nest. Nest is copying the famous Honeywell Round, from 1953, designed by Henry Dreyfuss.)

[1] http://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/faqs/lyric/lyric-thermostat

> And these things aren't even Internet-connected.

Thanks for adding a huge round of neurotic laughter to my monday morning! :)

"Chinese companies that helped fuel the global hoverboard craze are unraveling rapidly, after Western retailers like Amazon demanded new safety and legality standards earlier this month. Some are so upset by Amazon’s actions they plan to protest outside Amazon’s Guangzhou office later today (Dec. 29)."

Unbelievable.

There's also the matter that a huge number of hoverboard sales are fraudulent with stolen credit cards. Add this to safety issues, and they're just not worth sticking your neck out to sell them.

For anyone wondering how come chinese product with Li-ion battery explodes here is a good entry level walkthrough/explanation based on ~$20 LED "20W" floodlight example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5XknXGkZ8

Sins:

- absolutely atrocious manual build quality.

- no real load current control, replaced with wishful thinking and best case scenario back of a napkin calculated circuit.

- nasty power supply pretending to be a charger with ZERO protection and NO CUT-OFF. It will charge until something melts or blows.

- all electronic components underrated.

- 100% fake parameters.

Now you might say not everything from china is like that, there are good and bad engineers everywhere. That is true, except better engineers work at Xiaomi, Rigol, Lenovo‎, etc. You simply cant expect any quality from no name fly by night Shenzhen outfits. Just read Chinese reactions to excellent Amazon move from the link Animats gave earlier:

http://qz.com/582542/chinas-makeshift-hoverboard-industry-is...

They are shutting down and moving on to counterfeiting something else instead of working on security of this product!?!?!! Actually hiring an engineer is too much hassle. :/

I've seen the process many times, for many 'cheap' chinese produts.

They first design (or more often copy) a product, then they start removing the bits that 'aren't needed' -- like filtering caps and so on; sometime even fuses in power supplies, and pretty much ANYTHING they can save $.0002 on.

So when the first 'wave' of the product appears, you actually have a pretty good chance of having something of good quality/value -- however very quickly it degenerates into a pile of fire-hazard or device-destructing poo.

The rule #1 of buying cheap gadget is ALWAYS TAKING IT APART before even plugging it in or trying it. There are no alternatives. Often you can tweak it to make it safe/good, but sometime, it's instant return.

Fortunately I don't own a hoverboard, but I do own a Vauxhall Zafira car and there have been reports of them catching fire recently. Huge product recall, but does make you think.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22hoverboard+fire%22&tbm=...

You own a Zafira?

I'm so sorry.

haha, apology accepted.

If sellers have knowingly sold hover boards that aren't safe, then as far as I'm concerned I think they deserve having their funds frozen so that consumers can get refunds.

These manufacturers are bleating that Amazon has been "unfair", but they say nothing about how unfair it is to endanger the lives of those who bought a fun electronic toy to make a fast buck.

So zero sympathy from me!

I'd like to point out that there are responsible players in this industry.

My buddy has one of these: http://onewheel.com/

It's very well constructed and it's his daily transportation to and from work (weather permitting).

The problem units all seem to be inexpensive products built to fail. The same is true with second hand batteries for laptops and has been covered by the media.

http://www.howtogeek.com/172680/danger-why-you-shouldnt-buy-...

The trouble is with Hover Boards you get shoddy quality electronics gear with dangerous power sources. It's a terrible mix.

woah! I'm generally skeptical on motorized boards because small pebbles at speed will murder me and roads here are quite bad, but this is the one that might actually work for me.

Add to this that use of those gizmos on public greound is outright illegal in a lot of countries.

While the consequences, if caught may not be dire, causing an accident may hurl you into a world of pain, since your insurer won't pay squat. Or they may pay and hound you for the rest of your life in order to get reimbursed.

Being responsible for personal injury can get very, very expensive.

It wouldn't be any more expensive than walking into someone, with them falling down and breaking their back. Hitting someone with a bicycle can cause serious harm and cost you a lot of money, yet I know one person who owns insurance for riding a bike - 99.9% of people riding bikes don't care. I don't see why it would be different for this, it's slightly faster than walking and slower than riding a bike.

If you cause an accident on foot, or riding a bicycle your third party liability insurance pays for the damage.

If you cause the damage by using an illegal device your insurer will not pay for the damage.

It's not a matter of being slightly faster, it's a matter of the device not being certified for use on public grounds.

how many are actually insured for that specific liability? just asking, I'm unfamiliar with the other countries insurance policies, but I've rarely heard people being insured that way in the European countries I lived.

I can only speak for Switzerland: Most people here have have "household insurance", which covers theft, damage to property and mostly third party liability.

Third party liability won't cover usage of a motor vehicle (needs to be insured seperately, and is mandatory). It does cover damages caused by riding a bicycle, though.

"your third party liability insurance pays for the damage"

What "third party liability insurance"? Do I have some insurance that I don't know about? Or are you suggesting that somehow my car insurance(which does have third party liability cover) somehow covers me when walking around/cycling?

Why aren't they using LiFePO4 batteries like we did for ebikes?

They are extremely hard to catch fire.

But more expensive and less energy available per square inch.

High-end products that compete with the hoverboard do have much more safe designs. The problem is that the market has been flooded with flawed products that have been pushed past what is safe to lower the price.

I think you answered your own question.

https://www.google.com/search?q="christmas+tree+fire"&source...

Almost all of these seem staged for safety demonstration, not real fires.

When your christmas tree catches fire, you probably won't want to stick around to take pictures.

How else do you earn magic internet points?

I had a Christmas tree catch fire once when I was a kid, but that was probably due to the real candles (!) that were being used as lights.

> due to the real candles (!)

is using real candles such a unusual thing where you are that you felt you needed to include the (!)? I never had fake lights, only real candles

I can honestly say I've never seen anyone use real candles in a christmas tree in past 30 years.

Im in europe, and have quite the opposite experience. Fake candles seem common in the US, are you from there?

I'm in Sweden. Haven't seen a family with real candles in their tree since my grandma occasionally used them 30+ years ago, and even the they where only lit for a short while on christmas eve and electric lights where used all other times. Everybody I know here has electric lights, but often long strands of small bulbs, rather than the fake candle variety.

German here. It was common a few decades ago but there have been a lot of safety campaigns and these days it's unthinkable for most young adults and exceedingly rare.

Only exception I can think of is the German president, who had real candles on his tree during the traditional Christmas address. But I wouldn't be too surprised if there were fire safety officers keeping an eye on the tree in case it spontaneously decides to do something dangerous.

I would be surprised if live candles on Christmas trees don't void your insurance in Germany, actually.

This was in Kiel in the early 80s, so that fits in with your timeline.

Not sure what you're referring to.

The Christmas address with live candles was last year: http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Joachim-G...

Uh, as in ‘common a few decades ago’.

Ah, the Christmas tree catching fire was in Kiel in the 80s? I wasn't aware you were talking about Germany there.

But people did stick around and take pictures of the hoverboard fires.

I was thinking about making an electric bike using hoverboard components but think I'll be building the battery pack myself after all the news I've seen lately...

Or use the (excellently tested) Xiaomi battery packs? Make very sure they are the real deal though!

Thanks to this careless engineering, anything with a large lithium battery can no longer be checked in on flights. No more traveling with electric skateboards or drones.

Turns out, when you build electronics using li-ion/li-po batteries that don't have the proper protection circuitry built in, you get fires pretty easily.

That's not necessarily true. Most people in electric RC hobbies use Lithium batteries without any form of protection circuitry on the battery or cells themselves. The fire rate in the hobby is very low.

Fire rate for hoverboards is also very low. There are just so many of those sold.

Yep, I've been using Lithium batteries since 15 yrs, (electrics RC helicopters ) with high volts/amps capacity (10-14s) 5-6Ah, you just need to know the specifications theses kinds of batteries have, and not being an asshole Also If you dont trust your local chinese batterie dealer use this http://cpc.cx/eA8 it saves my home couple of time, when I make mistakes...

> The fire rate in the hobby is very low.

As far as I know the percentage of hoverboards that catch fire can also be low. It may be just that RC hobbyists usually don't post pictures of their flaming batteries on Facebook with a comment that they are a terrible fire hazard and demand to be taken off the market.

For what anecdotal evidence is worth, I know of one house fire and one car fire due to lithium batteries among the members of my local RC club.

They don't use protection during discharge, which is the relatively safe part of the cycle. They're careful to match the pack to the discharge demand to prevent thermal runaway. They're also at a considerable distance from the pack when it is in use. During charging, any sensible RC hobbyist uses a good balance charger and a LiPo safety bag.

It's also worth bearing in mind that lithium batteries replaced methanol and nitromethane fuel in the RC hobby, which isn't exactly benign.

(The google link is simply a Google image search for Hoverboard fires, not extra info on the topic.)

A search in Google images reaches the front page of HN. That's quality content right there.

I think this is still a relevant topic for HN. There have been great discussions here about batteries etc...(Tesla) and some really knowledgeable people chime in.

It's not so much about where the link goes as in the discussion it provokes, no? It's just another way of saying "let's talk about the issue of shoddy electronics in hoverboards" but you start out the conversation with a bit of visual context.

This is horrible and I feel for their losses.

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