Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire on Southwest plane | Hacker News Reader

Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire on Southwest plane

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222 pointsssclafani184 comments

This is a huge problem for Samsung. Individual recalls don't usually damage companies permanently; people understand that sometimes shit happens, and they quickly forget about it. But two in a row, when the replacements were supposed to be safe, is the kind of thing that etches itself much more deeply into public consciousness. Popular culture is now going to be associating "Samsung phone" with "time bomb" for a long time to come.

And the event taking place on an airplane is close enough to the nightmare scenario of catching fire during a flight that it will be firmly placed into the public consciousness.

I flew Emirates last week, and the preflight announcement about electronic devices said use of all devices was ok, except Galaxy Note 7 which need to stay turned off during the whole flight. I can't imagine much worse PR, when yoir products are routinely called out by neutral third parties for being an actual hazard source.

It was also mentioned on my recent flights in the USA and Europe on various OW airlines as well. Heck even in pre-boarding announcements at the gates. Really not the publicity you want.

I've flown 25k miles in the last three weeks across 5 countries.

Every airline mentioned this. American, Japan Airlines, Dragonair, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, JetBlue and Southwest.

Do you mind if I inquire what your career is? I would love a technology-related job that allows me to travel like that.

Just travel. Focusing on travel-related jobs is not a great goal. Focus on highly rewarding work, and pay your fares.

I second this. Work trips are very different from personal travel, and much less fun than people assume. A well paying job with generous vacation time (real vacation, not "available via email" vacations) is better, in my opinion.

I had a job that involved a lot of travel back in the day. I worked for a telecoms installing unix workstations and oracle servers for planning radio networks (calculating signal strength per frequency over terrain and subscriber maps). I loved it, but it's not for everyone. Long periods on your own, sometimes in locked-down societies like Saudi Arabia. I ended up playing a _lot_ of Civilization 2. Still I got to go to Tanzania, South Africa, Bangladesh, Japan and lots of countries in Europe and the Middle East and occasionally got to do sight seeing at weekends. Not so great once you're married with kids.

Most of that was vacation followed by a week of domestic work travel when I got back.

It’s the same thing in Europe, Lufthansa, Easyjet, …

I did not hear it on my last four flights across Europe with Lufthansa last week.

Hm … I flew pretty much exactly two weeks ago in a couple Airbus A320 every damn airline seems to use to fly across Europe (I flew e.g. Amsterdam to Frankfurt). I wonder if that’s a recent change (to no longer mention the Note) or they just say it on certain flights (which to me would make little sense).

I wonder if it's too late to short Samsung.

Pun intended?

probably not too late, seeing as an investor suggesting a re-org caused stock to go up on the same day this issue was announced.

I bet acquisition department is on fire.

And this thing was supposedly off when it started smoking:

"Green said that he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking."

What's the remedy here? All Galaxy Notes in the airtight metal box until we land?

Removable batteries. A quaint little feature we've had since the first 'portable' brick phones. No one needs a device to be razor thin.

If the phone was powered down, it looks like this might be a chemical reaction in the batteries. Taking it out might just remove barriers between the source of combustion and flamables in the environment.

First I'm surprised Al Queda doesn't use a special OS or a virus to make phones explode on a plane. Second, it could be competitors who specifically target the Note 7 with a 0-day attack to harm Samsung's reputation.

All phones with a battery are a fire hazard if they get the wrong OS.

The battery itself has a controller to prevent overcharging. I very much doubt the OS can override that.

This is dangerously wrong.

True, all airlines I used last week had such a warning, to turn it off for the whole time on board of the airplane, even while still on ground.

One of the airlines last week shorted the warning to "Samsung 7 phone".

Bad PR for Samsung.

I can confirm flydubai and indigo have also said the warning, maybe ICAO recommended it?

Wow that's amazing. I'd love to hear a recording of that.

You can already use it as a grenade/bomb in GTA 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Vaj33RYkI

That's the funniest thing I've seen all day.

So are Li-ion battery fires considered metal fires - if so, the instinctual reaction (apply water to extinguish) would be unfortunate...

Probably lithium polymer but yeah: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yD_Eal1_5NI

My RC aircraft group has a 55 gallon drum with salt water at our flying field. RC aircraft pretty much exclusively use lithium polymer packs, sometimes 2 the size of bricks in larger models / big helis. If a lipo starts smoking, you chuck it in the salt water and it shorts it out + cools it down. The reaction when they short internally (such as when they malfunction or get damaged e.g. When a heli crashes and smashes the pack -- they're not super rigid) is more thermite than dynamite, but it can still burn through things like flying tin can aircraft.

Here's what happens when you overcharge a few on purpose and beat them with a stick: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=coX0SwubG4A

Typically there's quite a bit of warning in the form of smoke first. Not sure if the chemistry in the Samsung batteries but they're likely lithium polymer. There are tons of different chemistries though: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_...

I thought LiFePO4 was common in RC circles? Or only for ground vehicles, or already outdated knowledge?

They aren't as high capacity (per cost/weight/volume) as LiPoly, so they aren't as common. Flying vehicles even less so as they are more sensitive to power/weight ratios.

Lithium ion batteries do not contain significant amounts of elemental Lithium.

But water can react with the electrolyte used in many Li-ion cells to form hydrofluoric acid.

A switched off phone. Now airlines need to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones. This hurts.

This isn't their only appliance that has been catching fires. There are several washing machines in Australia, made by Samsung, that have caused house fires.

Source?

Here you go, AU gov notice:

https://www.productsafety.gov.au/recall/samsung-samsung-top-...

Dunno about Australia, but this was about washing machines in the US: http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/news/samsung-cpsc-washing-ma...

Samsung really needs to cut bait here, accept and admit fully that they made a major engineering mistake, come clean, and forcibly recall ALL the devices, before there is a major disaster.

The time for serious, adult action was several weeks ago. From here on out, they deserve what they get.

The thing is, this was a replacement Note 7, which therefore includes their fix for the issue. So either they made a second mistake, or this is a very unlucky coincidence, or something else is going on.

This was the box for a replacement Note 7. The question is, does the phone match the box?

Like the GP said, a major engineering mistake.

Samsung has issued a forcible recall for all the devices. This was not one of the recalled device, it's a new model without the original flaw. This must have been something different.

Which begs the question - given the hundreds of millions of smartphones with out there - how many, even without a manufacturing flaw, end up smoking/catching fire? 1 in a million? 1 in 10 million?

Either it's a new flaw, or their fix failed to adequately address the original flaw. There was a report of someone in China having a replacement Note 7 burn out on them as well[0], so this is not an isolated incident for the 'fixed' phones.

[0] http://bgr.com/2016/09/27/note-7-recall-china-samsung-fire-e...

Interesting he's only been using wireless chargers. I used a Tylt wireless charger for a couple of Nexus 7s and both tablets now have a warped back due to overheating via prolonged charging.

Very curious if the fire was specifically caused by wireless charging.

For those interested in understanding batteries at a more technical level check out this link:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/bu_304b_making_li...

This entire episode seems hard to believe. How could Sammy fail so hard after so many years of industry knowledge? What corners did they cut?

Is it just unbalanced reporting or possibly sabotage? Seriously don't believe they got wrong what everyone else seems to have dodged.

I see the whole fiasco to be deeply related to how Samsung is run and controlled by the infamous Lee family. Note 7's battery is made by Samsung SDI, one of Samsung's subsidiaries, and I assume that SDI gets most of its revenues directly from Samsung Electronics. When you (SDI) have Samsung as your guaranteed customer, you don't really have to compete or try to survive. Besides, Samsung always set their flagship release dates based on expected Apple's iPhone releases, always trying to ship to market few weeks before Apple. When your release dates are set to your competitors' pace, not your own, you will certainly make mistakes like this.

The replacement battery is henceforth not made by SDI. Around 30% of the existing Note 7s were made by Amperex Technology, so they only need to increase those numbers.

You're statement would also mean that if you're a department within Apple you also do not need to compete or try to survive. I don't think that's necessarily true. There are probably inefficiencies, but there is also a lot to gain as well. It just depends on the quality of the organization.

They're not the only ones, even recently. http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/mcdonalds-recalls-hap... http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2016/08/04/psa-basis-peak-wear... http://www.pcworld.com/article/3050377/hardware/major-toshib... https://www.nextpowerup.com/news/29739/xiaomi-mi-band-2-is-p... https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2016/Denon-Recalls-Rechargeable...

Even the iPhone 7 is not immune; my boss got one that suddenly started overheating and he had to get it replaced.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-7-randomly-overhe...

That doesn't appear to be battery related, but the camera app somehow over-taxing the CPU.

> Is it just unbalanced reporting or possibly sabotage? Seriously don't believe they got wrong what everyone else seems to have dodged.

It's happened to other companies in the past. It's entirely plausible that Samsung just screwed up in the design or manufacturing stage, and there is zero evidence of the conspiracies you suggest.

"Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent." -Johann Wolfgang Goethe

"Let us not attribute to malice and cruelty what may be referred to less criminal motives. Do we not often afflict others undesignedly, and, from mere carelessness, neglect to relieve distress?" -Jane West

It's not hard to believe that Samsung has made mistakes, and maybe under the pressure to fix those mistakes has made yet more. It's unfortunate and probably speaks to some cultural issues at the top, but it hardly requires external forces.

"He has already replaced it with an iPhone 7."

This is the biggest FU to samsung.

The commercial writes itself. Apple should be in negotiations with the guy already.

I'd say that's beneath Apple. They usually don't attack competitors directly (used to WAY back, but now now).

At least I really hope it is. Twisting the knife at something like this would be a pretty horrible thing to do.

Leaders (or at least those who perceive themselves to be) rarely have a need to attack those who are underneath them.

True, that's why it would feel so cheap. Back when Apple had 4% of the PC market (before iPod) it made sense.

Didn't they do the whole Mac vs. PC campaign a few years ago? Sure, they didn't point out a specific brand, but on more than one occasion it seemed very obvious what product/company they had in mind.

That was when they were the plucky underdog, like with IBM before that. They certainly aren't (and wouldn't accept opinions to the contrary) an underdog to Samsung.

Also, "PC" was never a specific company. You could infer things like Microsoft or Dell or HP or whatever, but they avoided specifically naming a company.

Apple commercial actor, Dos Equis most interesting man style:

I don't always charge my iPhone 7 (shows headphone plugged into the lighting port), but when I do...I do it without bringing down commercial airliners.

Does anyone else think like me this might be a one time failure that is caused by the replacement phone being dropped or mishandled? Or, perhaps, a setup by the competition?

Unless I see statistical evidence that replacement Note 7 is catching on fire (random, different circumstances), then I do not see a reason to believe Note 7 replacement is b0rked.

Unfortunately, most people do not reason like that. Samsung's reputation will suffer, even after this single "Replacement Note 7 on fire" incident.

Most people don't reason like that because there is no acceptable reason for a phone to catch fire from "mishandling" or "dropping".

This was even after they thought they fixed the issue, so of course it looks very bad. Not only did they build a dangerous consumer device, it seems they did not actually fix it the second time around.

> there is no acceptable reason for a phone to catch fire from "mishandling" or "dropping".

maybe there is no acceptable reason but it happens A LOT:

https://www.google.nl/search?q=phone+catches+fire+-samsung

It's far more likely that in building one of the most sophisticated devices mankind has attempted, they fucked up a bit.

It is an insanely hard engineering challenge. I have no problem believing that a malfunction rate in the 0.00000001% region is possible.

When we flew with Lufthansa a few weeks ago they expressly forbade the use of the Galaxy Note 7. I have never heard something like that - its a real problem for Samsung.

I've flown a few times this month (Europe, multiple airlines), and on every flight there were verbal warnings and there were also signs at some of the airports when you check your luggage in. I'm pretty sure most commercial airlines and airports are aware of the issue and are making it widely known.

This is going to stick in people's minds – I overhead a couple of conversations where people were a bit confused about whether their phones were safe or not – they knew they had a Samsung, but many people don't differentiate between all the different models.

Same deal when I flew United the past weekend. Samsung Note 7s were not allowed to be turned on or charged on the plane. I think they are taking their cue from the FAA recommendation [0].

This is especially bad for Samsung, I think, because it doesn't just affect folks with a Note 7 -- everyone waiting at the gate hears the announcement. Talk about negative brand associations.

[0]: https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=86424

Swiss air flight three weeks ago - same thing. Samsung galaxy 7 specifically mentioned as cannot be powered on during the flight.

According to the story it wasn't even powered on

Both ANA and Air Canada had a Note 7 announcement at the start of their flights when I flew SEA-YVR-HND-YVR-SEA telling people not to use or charge their phones in flight.

Same when I took a Southwest flight last week. According to the article the guy had turned off his phone just before it started smoking.

Why the heck would the article end with the information that the owner has replaced it with iPhone 7. When did the verge start"native" advertising?

How is that native advertising? It's relevant to the story.

It's about as relevant as saying he calmed his nerves from the whole ordeal with an ice cold coca cola.

Not really. It implies that the owner no longer has faith in Samsung products and has switched, so I'd say it's relevant. They could have said that he replaced it with "another brand," which would have been more appropriate, but I still think it's relevant.

It's still not relevant to the story, which is about the phone exploding. The owner losing faith in Samsung doesn't matter. The only way it would be relevant is if he has decided ahead of time that he was switching to the iPhone and Samsung tried to bump him off because of it.

How is that relevant to the story?

What percentage of Galaxy Note 7 owners know they have a Galaxy Note 7?

I imagine some break down is: I have an Android phone. I have a Samsung phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note.

But Samsung Galaxy Note 7, specifically? I'm guessing at best 50% might know that.

I don't follow this at all. I definitely have a very skewed sample, but I haven't ever met a single person who didn't know exactly what type of smartphone they own. Phones are expensive, a Note 7 would be nearly brand new and is the most expensive and highest quality phone out there. I would guess that 99% of owners know what they have. People don't just pick up top-of-the-line flagships on a whim, only the most rich, lazy, AND ignorant person could settle on getting one without knowing exactly what they are buying. Anyone who is missing even just one of those qualities would end up with a different phone or know what they own.

And again, I've literally never met a person who couldn't immediately name their model smartphone, not the most dumbass poor person I've met nor my completely tech illiterate grandparents. Also, your breakdown seems fanciful anyway, who in the world would know that they have a Samsung "Galaxy"? No one cares about that name, it's only ever said in the middle of the whole title, it isn't a thing that people think about on its own.

Well, my parents were neither lazy or ignorant, they had top-of-the-line phones because I would pick them for them, but neither one of them could tell you which model they had, my mum knew she had an iPhone, and my dad knew he had an HTC. They were too busy running a business and putting food on our table to care about specific model of their phone, as long as it worked. My mum doesn't even know or care what car she drives exactly, apart from the fact that it's a silver nissan and it needs diesel fuel, because again, she's too busy making sure her 120 employees get paid on time each month and that the business keeps on running.

I don't know, I just have a massive issue with you calling people who don't know their phones lazy/rich/ignorant. It's really not fair.

Well the Galaxy Note 7 is a higher end device so maybe. But my parents both bought smartphones and they couldn't name the model. I tested this theory just now and my dad got the even the manufacturer wrong.

Indeed, I think at least for most older people their phone is what reads on it. If it says Nokia, it's Nokia and they likely have no idea what Android/iOS/Symbian/Tizen even mean.

Right - the parent was saying if you have the absolute latest flagship phone, you're likely to know it. The type of people who don't know the model of their phone are those who aren't buying the "Just released in last 60 days and is the most expensive in it's class" type smartphones.

Or they just got their first flagship and went with the most expensive one because the monthly cost didn't seem that large. I don't buy that most phone owners know the phone they own, but I could definitely see non-phone enthusiasts ending up with Note 7s

Meh. I had to look up what version of iPhone I had earlier today. All I know is I bought it within the last 3 years.

I've definitely known some older folks who didn't know what phone they had. It was typically selected or even purchased for them by a family member.

That said, it's relatively unlikely that these folks would have a brand new flagship phone so soon after release.

If it's like the Galaxy Edge 6(+), the full name is shown in massive block letters on every boot/reboot.

Closer to 100%.

It's a flagship device released less than two months ago (Aug 19), notable for its stylus (that regular Galaxies don't have).

Never underestimate the stupidity of people.

My friend works at a Samsung store and had people trying to return their Galaxy S4s.

When I went to buy a Samsung Galaxy S4, the shop gave me a Galaxy Note 3 at the price of the S4. Interestingly enough, they did scan the Note 3 box in their register. I noticed the outside saying 'Note 3', but assumed it was some kind of advertising. I only checked the front of the phone in the box.

I called ahead to have them reserve the S4, they actually double checked the price, scanned it, etc. As I was wondering whether to buy a Note 3 or an S4 I concluded shop/fate decided for me with a nice discount ;)

I came from a much smaller phone so size wise I didn't notice. Only when unboxing and seeing the stylus.

> Green’s colleague went back onto the plane to retrieve some personal belongings and said that the phone had burned through the carpet and scorched the subfloor of the plane.

I'm surprised this airline still doesn't have Planegard or something similar on board their aircraft. Burning/exploding devices are going to happen often enough that this should be a necessity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU4ALLsedj0

What a mess. I wouldn't want to be in Samsung quality control right now.

In what has to be the nerdiest humor I've ever come up with, I suggested to some astronomer friends here at NASA that this Samsung Galaxy line be rebranded the Samsung Seifert.

It's my understanding that all Lithium Ion batteries can fairly easily catch fire if they are not treated somewhat carefully, typically by a circuit that prevents loads that might cause it to heat up.

Is it theoretically possible that malware could be designed that would cause a Lithium Ion powered smart phone's battery to catch fire? I'm thinking it would be more of a low-level firmware update where a programmable logic device was used as part of the battery protection circuit.

Thoughts?

This is about Macbooks, not phones, but it's interesting background on your question nonetheless: https://media.blackhat.com/bh-us-11/Miller/BH_US_11_Miller_B...

Though I am only an electronics hobbyist I don't think this is possible. Most of the battery charging chips that you are talking about don't have firmware, that would require them to be I would guess 10x more expensive.

Some of the datacenters I visit have signs on them forbidding people from having Samsung Note 7s on the floor.

"Keep them in your car," one of the signs said. Hmmm, maybe storing them near many liters of gasoline isn't the best idea . . .

I'm sure they'd rather you lose your car than their entire data center

The entire datacenter from one 3500mAh 5V battery? That sounds like a book rather than real life.

There's a reason people charging quadcopter's lipo batteries are told to watch them while charging, not abandon them.

It's not that they'd loose the data centre, but VESDA environmental monitoring units are surprisingly sensitive so you could easily end up with the fire suppression system firing.

At best you've then got a >$10k invoice to refill and reset the system. More likely you've got damage to servers, people and/or the building as well as massive amounts of disruption to deal with.

The gas isn't even what has me worried here, though it's certainly a contributing factor. An untended hot car (basically a greenhouse) with a li-ion battery in it has me worried.

I recently flew to Munich/Prague with Air Canada and Lufthansa - the flight attendants said to both not charge a Samsung Note 7 and that they require them to actually also be turned off.

Does turning them off prevent them from catching on fire?

What is the actual problem described in technical terms, really?

  Initial conclusions indicate an error in production that
  placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells.   
  That in turn brought negative and positive poles into 
  contact, triggering excessive heat. Samsung however  
  stressed that it needed to carry out a more thorough 
  analysis to determine “the exact cause” of battery damage.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-13/samsung-bl...

I seem to recall an article not too long ago (perhaps here on HN?) that analyzed the Note 7 battery failures; their conclusion was along the lines that the phone was designed too slim for the battery manufacturing tolerance.

So in some percentage of the phones the battery will be under constant mechanical pressure because the battery is slightly bigger than the space allocated for it. This pressure may eventually force the plates inside the battery into contact with each other, or at least close enough to cause leak currents and overheating.

> Does turning them off prevent them from catching on fire?

Not necessarily. Assuming the cause is as Samsung describes it, it can happen even with the phone turned off. But overheating to the point of thermal runaway is more likely at higher voltages (during charging, or with fully charged battery), and probably more likely during high current drain (aka using the phone).

For more technical details, I suggest the Electrical Engineering Stackexchange.

http://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/230164/64021

Judging by the fact that the new version of the phone may still be catching fire, we may not know what the cause is. If Samsung had accurately diagnosed the problem in the first place then this incident probably wouldn't have occurred.

Someone at Samsung is having a very bad day.

According to the article it said that he powered down the phone and put it in his pocket before it started smoking. Maybe it started combusting when he powered it off.

Nevertheless I would be freaking out if that happened mid flight.

> Does turning them off prevent them from catching on fire?

Doubtful. Isn't it the Li-ion batteries that are combusting, ie. chemical reaction?

They might be safe without load on them. Who knows? Maybe Samsung does.

I'm imagining cargo ships / stores with stacks of these things though. Wonder if one goes boom, would that spread and start a fire?

I don't know if load matters[1]. Could be impact related, or heat related, or something else entirely?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLc74Qpvweg

They are confusing due to overheating. If the phobe is off, no heat is generated.

What are the odds this is properly investigated? Korean chaebol culture is notoriously close-fisted.

It wouldn't even have been known to the public, if it happened only in Korea, because they have a complete control of the media in S Korea. When it first happened it Korea, media tried to dismiss it as if it was a false report by black consumers who are trying to win some money by suing Samsung. I found it pretty funny because, in Korea, you never win against any big companies in the court. There are no scenarios where you can sue a company and win any money. Even if, you do end up winning, it won't be in $millions like in US, but will max $10000, which rarely happens at all. So no sane person will even try. I am glad that it also happened in US, because Samsung does not have the same control in US as they do in Korea. The only way for this to be properly investigated is to be done by US, not Korean government. It was really ridiculous to see how all Korean media praised how great a company Samsung is when they announced a recall.

What about social media? Is it also difficult for such news to spread there?

People are afraid to share anything that talks bad about Samsung, because they believe it will affect them negatively in the future when searching for jobs or such.

These phones should be returned immediately by the company before someone inadvertently is dead because think of the senario where someone is driving with this phone in the drivers pocket & catches fire........ all OK if the car isn't doing 70 along a motorway otherwise - danger of a collision.... it has happened in the past re wasps & bees distracting the drivers attention which is a very serious matter. Any spontaneous combustion of anything must be resolved forthwith. So Are these phones being recalled ?

What happens if someone decides to check it in their luggage and it catches fire there. Are there measures to deal with fires in the cargo hold?

There are - after a bunch of really bad aircraft fires in the 90s caused by hazardous materials in the cargo holds, the FAA has mandated fire suppression systems in all commercial air cargo holds.

Still, though, airlines would rather avoid the problem entirely. Airline safety usually relies on defense-in-depth - you fix the root cause, and then you fix anything else that would've stopped the problem, because things go wrong in a cramped cylinder at 30,000 feet. For example, a fast-moving fire could easily burn through the hydraulics or electronics that would trigger the fire suppression system before it has a chance to go off.

And that is how I quickly explain ORM-D (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORM-D) class items like small arms ammunition, which of course is allowed to be packed in small quantities in individuals' checked luggage: things that aren't particularly dangerous by themselves, but if in a plane's cargo hold in sufficient quantity, could accelerate a fire beyond the capabilities of those fire suppression systems.

Whereas few overly worry about shipping 1000+/- rounds by ground, except e.g. the movers that just moved me to my new home, they really can't afford to play the game of numbers with the few trucks they have (no batteries, or liquids (which could make a schedule breaking mess), either).

Big enough high energy batteries on planes, or too close to my skin ... those give me the heebie jeebies....

Side note: It's against FAA regulations to check bags containing lithium ion batteries. Sometimes they remind you at check-in and sometimes they don't. In theory, you could get into trouble for doing it.

https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/hazmat_safety/more_inf...

Batteries in devices are allowed, because they are assumed to have the necessary protection from things like accidental short circuits. Bare spare batteries are what's prohibited from checked luggage.

There are some countermeasures but they can't handle a large fire see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_991

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6

for recent examples

I got a flight across Greece a week or so back. It's the first time a named device was singled out as "do not turn on, do not attempt to charge, please identify yourself to cabin staff"-type stuff since the 1990s when there was a bunch of - I think, Gateway - laptops that were known to catch fire, and they were regularly not allowed on flights.

The fact this is a replacement means the product has a major engineering flaw, and is likely to end up meaning the product is scrapped completely.

This could be the end of Samsung. They need to get on this and shut it down within a few days. Good luck to them.

> This could be the end of Samsung.

This really could not. Samsung is a gigantic conglomerate. They make everything from power plants to super tankers and weapon systems. They could lose their phone business entirely and still be huge.

It's also not going to kill their phone business, at all.

It won't even end the Galaxy Note product line.

They'll just sweep it under the rug and release the next one in 9 months.

Hopefully this means that a replaceable battery makes a comeback in the next Note series.

Those iPhone 7 sales numbers are going to be absolutely MONSTROUS.

Appropriate TV advert =====Boom -la la la la lah mental technicians of electronics??????

There must be money to be made for a mobile phone mini fire extinguisher???????/

Is there a ceramic furnace liner phone cover ????????

Boarding an airplane they mention to turn off the Samsung Note 7 for the entire time on board.

Samsung will have to release a Note 8 soon. Note 7 users will have a hard time even in future and it's bad for Samsung's brands.

Time to short Samsung.

It's not that easy to buy Samsung stock outside of South Korea.

SSNLF?

Not that easy unless you are a bit more into stock trading than the average retail investor, or willing to lump SSNLF in with a bunch of other South Korean companies in an index fund.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/why-and-how-to-invest-in-samsu...

> The shares of Samsung don’t trade on major exchanges like Nasdaq and NYSE in the U.S. It is listed on the Korean exchange and available as GDR in London and Luxembourg. However, in accordance with Rule 144A of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act, U.S. citizens are prohibited from investing in GDR’s. The following options are available to U.S. investors:

> 1. Investors can either buy shares directly in the Korean stock market after proper paper work or through a local securities firm or bank (Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. are eligible)

> 2. Investors can buy Samsung’s shares traded over-the-counter in the U.S.

> 3. Investors can opt to take exposure to Samsung along with other Korean companies by investing in a South Korea ETF, for example, the iShares MSCI South Korea Capped ETF (EWY) has a heavy exposure of 20.64% towards Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Not a trader, but it sounds more like a blood in the streets situation to me.

It's starting to look a little like the Volkswagen fiasco.

> Green’s Note 7 is in the hands of the Louisville Fire Department’s arson unit for investigation. He has already replaced it with an iPhone 7.

I'm not sure why everyone is caught up with the competition between Apple and Samsung when the Blu R1-HD sells for $59. Most people I know would be indifferent between the Blu R1-HD and a higher end phone (considering performance, battery life, form factor, build quality, camera and screen quality).

Theres a bigger difference than you think.

I have here a Sony Xperia E1 and a Motorola Moto G (2nd gen)

The Xperia is also $59 and Sony is a more widely known brand so let's assume they're similar.

The Moto G was $179 new some years ago the Xperia is $59 today.

On paper, they're similar in terms of ram, cpu cores, flash, gpu, etc.

But in practice... there is an absolute world of difference, and we're not talking flagship phones vs cheap ones, we're talking one cheap phone vs a slightly less cheap phone, but still low-mid range.

The screen on the sony sucks by comparison, its all washed out and grey (not IPS), the speakers also suck, the camera sucks, the letters in the SONY logo are falling off it now says SO, the thing is a bastard to hold on to because the case is slippery. It's also just slower for some reason, even though the CPU is faster, so I assume the flash is crappy? And the digitizer sucks, scrolling goes wobbly all the time. (I thought, oh, I'll buy a cheap Sony, they make good stuff... I guess cheap shit is cheap shit no matter whose name is on it.)

and that's Sony, so I can only imagine Blu is worse.

(just FYI, flagships are better at everything in terms of speed, display quality, camera, feeling, etc, but they also do A LOT MORE physically, i.e. they have NFC, they're waterproof, they read fingerprints, they have multiple gyros, etc)

Why would you imagine that Blu is worse? Especially on the low end, a lot of the older brands can and do trade heavily on their established name and reputation to sell utter crap. There's little downside to this - as you demonstrated, if someone buys their stuff and it turns out to be a piece of shit they'll often just assume that everything else must be even worse.

From the specs I can find, the R1 HD has a 5-inch 720p IPS display and much better reviews than the Sony Xperia E1 did. Not only that, at the time of its release the E1 was competing with the Moto E which (like its bigger brother) also had an IPS screen and far better reviews than the E1.

I agree with this. I bought a Blu R1-HD when my iPhone 6 screen cracked, and decided to wait a few weeks so I could just replace it with an iPhone 7.

The few weeks using the Blu went a lot differently than I expected. The phone is very solid and the overall experience of using the phone is first-rate.

It would be one thing if we were talking about a $599 Android phone compared with a $749 iPhone. But this thing cost me $59 which is in a totally different ballpark. I would simply not have expected it to be anywhere close to iPhone quality but it is.

The only things that are "worse" than an iPhone 6 in my opinion are:

- the touch screen is slightly less accurate for taps, but this could also be because I'm less accustomed to Android.

- No compass. GPS works fine but panning the phone around doesn't re-orient the map when navigating which is a feature I like.

There are also several nice features which it has that the iPhones lack, such as support for SD card storage expansion (I immediately added a fast 64GB one I had lying around) and a second SIM card.

Not trying to nitpick features. Buying a R1-HD is like getting a one year old Ferrari for $12K.

You two have convinced me to buy an R1-HD.

It seems to be that Samsung is getting a lot of extra scrutiny based on their recall and the news is exploiting this. Phone batteries have been known to overheat and explode for years now and it is in no way brand specific. I think the way Samsung handled the whole situation was above and beyond how other companies may have responded. They identified an issue, and replaced everything.

I am not saying that Samsung could not have made another mistake, but I think it is unreasonable to try and link every single battery issue and explosion under the Samsung brand as something that is a precursor to another giant issue.

This recently happened with an iphone on a plane: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-faa-investigatin...

"I think the way Samsung handled the whole situation was above and beyond how other companies may have responded."

LOL, you mean like follow the proper legal process for filing a recall in the US? Yeah... they did none of that. What exactly was "above and beyond"?? Seriously, I'm not even joking, I'm genuinely curious as from my perspective they did the absolute bare minimum, and took an insane amount of time to even start addressing such a dangerous defect.

I've worked with companies that had a dangerous defect they discovered before any issues occurred, and the same day they stopped sales, contacted every potentially affected customer directly and requested they stop using the product and sent them a shipping label to get the gear back and replace it at no cost or traveling to a store for the user.

I define above and beyond as recalling all of their defective product with no questions asked, offering a substitute while they fix the problem, and then finally replacing the phones to anyone who wants to try them again.

If this is a poor company response please let me know who has done better as I would too like to do business with them instead. Clearly my experiences with companies have been drastically different than yours.

Recalling and replacing a product that can spontaneously catch fire is not going "above and beyond". It is the bare minimum.

What would you have liked to see beyond replacement?

Transparency around what the problem was, why it happened, and how it was fixed.

Receiving a non-defective replacement. The phone that caught fire in the article was a replacement.

Informally issuing a recall without going through proper government channels and accepting returns for a consumer product that poses a danger to life due to a design defect is basically the bare minimum you could possibly do in a case like this. Shipping someone a replacement that still catches fire definitely isn't helping their perception with anyone who was going to give them a second chance.

Since it seems my opinion is entirely off base I am curious how you would have liked to have seen the replacements handled? What would be above and beyond in this case?

Go through the CPSC to initiate a recall properly instead of trying to do a fly-by-night recall that confuses all of phone providers. Give people actual information about why, how, and when these batteries fail instead of just nebulously blaming the batteries that came from your own factory. Don't ship people replacement phones that still spontaneously ignite.

Around 2001 there were all kinds of laptop battery recalls, where they would send you two new ones and a box to return the old one; that's above and beyond. Since battery replacement is not applicable and advance shipping a $$$ phone return is a big risk, Samsung could have worked with carriers to authorize replacement of carrier branded models at the carrier store, even if original purchased somewhere else. If the phones are serviceable, they could have made a replace the battery while you wait program, so people don't need to transfer data etc.

> but I think it is unreasonable to try and link every single battery issue and explosion under the Samsung brand as something that is a precursor to another giant issue.

I disagree. Given that this phone model already had battery problems, it is not at all irrational to assume the new battery problems are related to (or the same as) the old ones. That's far likelier than the new problems happening by pure coincidence, given that the base rate of phones catching fire is so small. I think what you're forgetting here is that, by far the most likely scenario is that Samsung just didn't fix the original problem correctly.

Perhaps I have more faith in a company whose decision it was to recall all of those phones. They knew that all eyes would be on them after the fact, and to mess up again could be the beginning of the end for their brand. I would think that extra care would have been given in making sure these issues were fixed before releasing them again. Another point to keep in mind is that in perspective, the amount of issues that did occur, compared to how many phones are out there made by Samsung indicates to me that we should have some amount of trust in their products.

On the other hand if they did not realize this, perhaps they do deserve all the bad press. Regardless nobody actually knows right now, and my opinion is that I believe this is all news hype bandwagon behavior right now.

I'm sure they felt if they waited too long the opportunity they had would be lost. (there was a ton of great press before the Note 7 launched, and I'm sure there was a feeling that this was their moment to really shine against an Apple launch)

But Samsung didn't issue a recall until forced to by the US regulator. At first they just issued a patch to limit charging to 60%. The US regulator is furious with Samsung for the way the handled this[0]. Meanwhile in China they delayed the recall there until negative media pressure forced them to do the same. "On 2 September, Samsung issued a recall of 2.5 million phones in certain countries, leaving out China."[1]. Samsung behaved appalling in this.

[0]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/16/us-regulato...

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37416914

I was on a flight recently and the lady next to me had a large Samsung phone on which she was constantly playing games, etc. and I was very worried.

I was also afraid of questioning if it was a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 because the attendant made an announcement saying people should turn it off and she didn't. Next time I'm not going to be afraid. Can't imagine the consequence if it caught fire at 30,000 feet.

> Can't imagine the consequence if it caught fire at 30,000 feet.

A burned hole in the carpet.

I'm much more worried about something like this in a check-in bag, where the fire can spread uncontrollably. At least in cabin you will notice the fire early and can use the fire extinguisher.

A fire extinguisher is not going to do much against a lithium fire. But at the same time, such fire would end before you even got up from your seat - the only concern would be something inside the plane catching fire, but literally everything inside the cabin is fireproof.

Fire inside the hold is another matter entirely, but there are fire suppression systems fitted into all planes nowadays.

I don't think lithium batteries are allowed in check luggage. You're supposed to carry them on.

Thank God everyone carefully reads and follows the checked luggage rules and regulations! ;)

I believe it's batteries on their own - as long as they are in a device I believe it's fine (if not I've been breaking the law...).

Why are we allowing these on airplanes?! Are we waiting for someone to leave one of these devices in their checked luggage so it can start a fire that downs a commercial airliner before banning them?!

Well Samsung, that's what you get for using non-replaceable batteries.

I hope that this desaster forces either phone vendors or regulatory agencies to mandate replaceable batteries. The EU got through with mandating micro-USB, after all...

It's not fair to say that Samsung deserves this because of a non-removable battery. This could have happened with a removable battery too. Who knows the reason why this happened -- bad battery manufacturer, bad soldering internally, something wrong in the layout of pieces connecting the charger to the battery -- but it's unfair to say this is deserved because they removed something and added something in return, in this case water resistance.

I own a CAT B15Q, water-resistant, dual-SIM and replaceable battery.

Watertightness can be achieved without sacrificing replaceable batteries.

Yes, but that still doesn't mean Samsung deserves it. The fact that they don't have a removable battery doesn't mean they deserve this, and it doesn't mean that the users who buy their products deserve this.

So replaceable batteries dont explode?

They can, but you can separate the device from the battery in case of recalls, thus preventing natural resource waste.

Also, my Galaxy Note 1 battery blew up on me because I used a cheap charger. I simply took it out, disposed of it at a city waste center, and put in a new battery for 15€. Try this with a "closed" phone. Either you can do it yourself, which requires at minimum 3h time + specialized equipment (e.g. regulated hot air gun), or pay 100€+ to a service center.

Thanks but no thanks to fixed batteries.

I can't speak for the Galaxy Note, but when I replaced the battery on my iPhone, it took me perhaps twenty minutes with minimal tools (screwdrivers, suction cup, plastic "spudger" -- all supplied with the battery) and no prior experience. Could probably do it in half the time with practice.

When I took out my Samsung Note 2 battery it took me perhaps ten seconds with no practice either. Twenty minutes for replacing a component they know is going to wear out the quickest of all components is long and a dick move by the company.

To give some perspective, this was for a phone that was around 4 years old, and which had been sitting in a box fully discharged for a while, destroying the original battery.

Twenty minutes of work over four years is not a big deal.

Battery replacement on an iPhone? Give me 10minutes

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