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Comment by cactus2093 | Hacker News Reader

cactus2093

Seems pretty mundane, the headphones can overheat while charging in rare cases and it's fixed with a software update. It's not like they're burning people's ears during regular use or catching on fire.

Lots of comments taking the opportunity to complain about Amazon the storefront, and issues with fake reviews, counterfeiting, etc. but that doesn't really have anything to do with this story. Amazon's hardware generally has a pretty decent reputation, from Kindle and Echo that have been huge successes and basically created brand new product categories, to amazon basics cables and batteries and whatnot that are reliable at a good price.

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Journalism in action here, the relevant line is WELL below the fold:

“We recently determined that in very rare cases it is possible for Echo Buds to overheat while in the charging case."

Good job as usual, HN community.

If it overheats in he charging case, and then you put them in your ears, isn't it at risk of fire?

I think the bigger danger is when it's in the charging case. They're more likely to be tossed in the bottom of a bag or pocket where there will be no ventilation whatsoever. On their own, the airbuds have a much higher ratio of surface area to battery volume, increasing cooling especially when they're in-ear.

Still doesn't seem like a big deal because Apple usually demands the best binned parts for their products and they have weight to throw around. Better quality battery cells are far less likely to have fires due to thermal runaway and Apple power firmware is probably good enough to stop them from reaching that point when charging.

Your apple is showing.

> it's fixed with a software update

How is it fixed with a software update? Why is it running software when charging?

Probably not due to processor heating. Batteries heat up when charging. I imagine this software update reduces the charge rate to lessen battery self-heating.

Everything runs software, all the time.

Even when there is no source of power?

devices like this probably have low-level battery management software running while charging. this would be to protect the batteries and prevent overcharging.

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