Samsung temporarily halts production of Galaxy Note 7 | Hacker News Reader

Samsung temporarily halts production of Galaxy Note 7

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85 pointssoupboy43 comments

The incidents involving phones that were sleeping and not having the batteries being actively charged seem to indicate some major design issue.

To battery experts: Is this a one-off design and/or manufacturing error or are we reaching some limits to what we can do with current lithium battery technology with respect to Ah rating, size, weight, quick charging ability, heat generated with fan-less dissipation, etc.? In other words, is it just a matter of time that other phone manufacturers would hit such issues too?

This is certainly not the first such case and it's unlikely to be the last. I recall Sony having numerous recalls related to similar issues.

It's the nature of dense energy storage media to run into problems if the energy is allowed to be released too quickly, but the characteristics of Li-ion do make it more conducive to cause these type of incidents. Battery university has a nice explanation of the typical causes here:

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

Also, "Charge and Catch Fire: A History of Exploding Batteries and Other Product Recalls":

https://www.thestreet.com/slideshow/13728952/1/samsung-s-bat...

>if the energy is allowed to be released too quickly

Wasn't this the problem? That the kernel was drawing too much voltage from the battery, or something like that I read.

Lithium ion batteries can supply a lot of power, especially relative to what a cell phone uses. I would be very surprised if the batteries were failing because of too much power draw, rather than a combination of faulty manufacturing and overheating.

I'm no electronics engineer, but I don't think "drawing too much voltage" is a thing.

As current goes up, resistance has to go down, so there will be a voltage drop across the battery terminals.

That's my understanding, someone correct me if I'm wrong, or otherwise help clear this up?

Resistance is a simplification of characteristic curves, which themselves are simplifications. You can easily get a voltage drop across battery terminals, you just have to put the battery in series with another battery. This is dangerous. You could also hook up an active current sink. Again, dangerous. There is nothing preventing the internal battery resistance from causing the terminals to go negative except for the simple fact that most equipment we connect to batteries will stop working before that point is reached (unless you hook batteries in series—which is why batteries in series must be close to identical, so they run out at the same time).

I just want to point out that batteries are often connected in series in regular devices.

Many devices where there are two AA batteries (TV remotes, etc...) usually have the batteries wired in series. They need to do it to get the voltage high enough for some of the components.

Additionally, many batteries are actually made from multiple smaller batteries wired in series internally. For example, some 9V batteries are actually just 6 regular 1.5V batteries wired in series.

Of course, in these configurations, they generally discharge at a similar rate.

I believe the resistance is sort of constant (for most normal usage cases) for passive circuits and in solid state electronic it would be a function of how many parts of the chip are engaged.

This being said anything short-circuiting the loop, can create a new pathway with less resistance (think molten metal, sparks etc). But modern batteries can send a lot more current then, magnifying the effect.

There was a theory that they charge the battery to a too high voltage, creating internal shorts.

Little wording issue there if this is the case it probably drew too much current causing a massive voltage drop overheating and causing a runaway condition.

Something stuck in an infinite loop involving the antenna or other power-hungry module of the phone ?

Can this happen in theory ?

What gets me is the fact that they did the recall and produced a new version of the phone which was supposed to fix the issue, yet now there are reports of the replacement units doing the same thing.

Seems like they either jumped to conclusions and mis-identified the problem, or they attempted to fix the problem with a band-aid solution with the hopes of reducing the probability of failure just enough to make the issue "go away".

On a more personal note:

I hope this gives other Android phone manufacturers a chance to gain some market share. Primarily, I want HTC to do well. They seem to be one of the most friendly when it comes to unlocking the bootloader (you can do it via their website). I really wanted to get the Galaxy S7, but after finding out that the versions with the SnapDragon SoC will have locked bootloaders, I decided not to. In my experience, Samsung's version of Android has never been that great. Without the ability to flash custom ROMs and remove some of that useless crap, I just couldn't bring myself to make the purchase.

> Seems like they either jumped to conclusions and mis-identified the problem, or they attempted to fix the problem with a band-aid solution with the hopes of reducing the probability of failure just enough to make the issue "go away".

That seems very likely. It's very easy to screw up the fix for a serious issue when you're in a rush. I've deployed my fair share of broken bugfixes.

Probably because the nominal situation isn't "no defects", it's that the defects are below a certain threshold. They can get a sample below a certain threshold but it's not a guarantee that the actual full scale production would be.

It'd be smart to give the tolerances some extra headroom on the second go-around, but I would guess that in order to get additional certainty on their sample, they would need to run their testing program for longer while the inventory is piling up. And I have to imagine with a production the scale of the Galaxy there are immense pressures to get that inventory moving.

But it sounds like they gambled and lost.

Samsung has been dragging their feet on this. Their response has lacked clarity and urgency.

Paradoxially this kind of tepid circumspect response designed to first protect the brand has a far greater chance of damaging the brand permanently than coming clean unequivocally and proactively taking full responsiblity.

The second approach you take a loss but live to fight another day, the first the public begin to harbour doubts about your commitment to safety and your users and that can cast a long shadow on your future products.

I don't think they were trying to protect the brand, they were trying to protect their bank balance by avoiding recalling, replacing and ultimately scrapping the product line.

But they already had recalled the model, the first version, which can be exchanged for what was supposed to be a 'safe' model. Didn't work out for them.

Honestly, I thought their initial response was fine. There were probably a few too many incidents before a recall was announced, but it happened pretty quickly, and you have to give them a bit of time to do their own internal "what the hell is going on" assessment. Fairly quickly though, they announced a global recall, communicated what to do to their customers, and said all the right things to make it right. My wife bought one the day after launch. Once the recall started, there was nothing tepid or ambiguous. She got multiple direct communications laying out the steps to take for the recall.

The big problems are (a) they didn't actually seem to get it fixed, (b) they didn't actually seem to get it fixed, and (c) the appearance (and possible reality) that they cut corners initially to get to market before the iPhone.

Hopefully now people will realize that every battery powered laptop and phone on an airplane is a potential bomb.

It will be interesting if any major air carriers decide to ban the brand from flight.

with regards to your comment the industry should strive to show otherwise and there should not be any reason to not be able to predict this type of failure occurring at the device level. there certainly have to be some telltale signs that are detectable

I haven't heard about that yet, but, there has already been an instance where a plane was evacuated over a Note 7 catching fire.

On Lufthansa flights you are not allowed to have Note 7s powered on. They make a special announcement about it.

It doesn't seem to matter that the phone is powered down, as shown by this incident on a South West airlines flight where the Note 7 caught fire after it was powered down.

Here's an excerpt from an interview by The Verge on this incident [1]:

"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."

[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/5/13175000/samsung-galaxy-no...

Im not talking about defects, but malicious tampering.

I may not be able to get a bomb on board, but I sure as shit can short circuit a laptop battery and start a fire.

And then the flight attendant will pull a fire extinguisher from storage, spray it over your laptop and life will go on.

Seriously, no need to overblow the issue to add more security theater.

Starting a fire is a manageable problem (the fire can be contained and put out). I doubt you can stage an effective terrorist attack with a laptop battery.

Anything with a dense energy source is somehow problematic in a closed space in the sky. Maybe they'll force people to put batteries somewhere safe during the flight, and offering safe power lines on seats. Reminds me of new high speed trains that have usb sockets in the back of each seat so people can charge or use their devices.

An unlikely-to-happen view from a different perspective - if other manufacturers' devices exhibit the same issue, we could probably, just probably, start having devices with removable batteries. The airlines could charge passengers to have the batteries stowed away in a "safe" condition (whatever it takes to keep them from catching fire even when isolated).

I'm not the first to think about or wish for this. Many sites have (coincidentally) mentioned or wondered about the same.

The battery in the Note 3 is fairly easy to remove without tools.

Of course, the battery is not much smaller than the phone itself, and removing it exposes the terminals of the battery, making it easier to accidentally short circuit etc. - it's probably safer to leave the battery in the device where it's already contained in one layer of generally non-combusting material.

We're already aware of that and that's why you can't bring batteries past a certain size into the cabin.

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

Wouldn't it need to be a pretty big battery to exhibit anything close to "bomb"-like energy release? With a laptop-sized battery, you could probably get an explosion big enough to injure one person, or start a fire, but I doubt you'd be able to compromise the airplane significantly.

In my opinion, other than the whole catching-on-fire-thing, the Note 7 was one of the best, if the the best Android device out today. Least amount of bloatware on a Samsung yet, they unified the software for the S Pen, the S Pen is better this time around, and it just looks gorgeous.

I'm not sure what the problem is. Maybe Samsung rushed it, maybe it's a defect in some supplier made component, etc I have no idea but it does seem rather unfortunate and kinda sad to see such a nice phone not only be effectively done but it likely caused a lot of brand damage to Samsung in general (lots of reports of airline employees saying Samsung Galaxy phones, not just notes, are not allowed which granted is probably a misunderstanding but the brand impact is there).

My wife currently has a replaced Note 7 and she absolutely loves it and hates that she'll probably have to give it up.

I wonder why, I mean, it's a battery after all. They've pulled off probably a hundred other phone designs and they aren't new to the market.

What's particularly wrong with the Note 7 that they can't fix in a PCB or battery redesign?

By now I would say the image of the Note 7 (and the replacements) being associated with exploding batteries. It might be best to ditch the Note 7 and move on to a newly named phone.

They are probably going to kill the name and wrap fixed internals in new box with new name.

Samsung ISIS edition?

Samsung Daesh is the new thing this week, no?

What are the financial consequences for Samsung and its suppliers ?

Given the political leaders of Korea and financial owners of Samsung are the same: not much, likely.

This is so sad. I recently saw a Note 7 in action and after only 2 minutes I was ready to shell out $700 and buy my first ever Samsung phone.

Anyway, maybe this gives other good Android manufacturers (specially HTC and Sony) a chance to make a comeback.

They really need to do a full recall and refund for all sold Note 7 phones as well.

T-Mobile at least has a full recall. Would be surprised if other carriers are not as well.

Are those accidents caused by faulty batteries, or by the way the electronics make use of them?

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