WakeMate Warns Users Of Major Safety Issue | Hacker News Reader

WakeMate Warns Users Of Major Safety Issue

techcrunch.com

71 pointswensing8 comments

"...isn’t specific about what the exact problem is..."

I would presume it saying "the power brick is defective" is a really, really good specification about what the exact problem is with regard to a "safety issue." TechCrunch also labels it as "USB Charger" (which makes me think of just a regular USB cable) when in the email it says the "USB charger brick." What I REALLY hate is that TC never, ever goes back and fixes grammatical errors/typos/misleading statements when it screws up an article, it just adds an "update" at the bottom of the article. Have they not heard of TL;DR?

At least the notice email was well written.

It isn't that that great of a description, since it doesn't tell whether the defective brick manifests itself through the brick overheating and catching fire or (as in the twitter video) the Wakemate unit itself. This isn't faulting them, they may not know at this point.

Both alternatives could presumably burn your house down, but one in particular could horribly mame you with less chance of avoidance.

``I would presume it saying "the power brick is defective" is a really, really good specification about what the exact problem is with regard to a "safety issue."''

I'm suspicious of this explanation. The brick might be defective, but it's the responsibility of the charger to shut down the charge cycle if there's something wrong with the input. Most lithium-ion chargers include an on-die thermistor for this reason. I wonder if the WakeMate folks found one that didn't and also didn't populate an external thermistor to save space or cost.

Sounds like someone wasn't practicing defensive electrical engineering (is that a thing? I think it should be a thing).

original discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2054847

original discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2030226

At what point does the wake mate management team get fired for all the screw ups they've caused? It's amazing how many customer issues they've had developing this product. Sure, the concept might be great but the team in charge just seem to be in over their heads.

The first thing I thought when I read the headline: zombies.

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