Comment by romwell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by romwell | Hacker News Reader

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So you are the OP?

Please, don't cut Bose any slack. They deserve to be shamed.

If someone were to make a self-exploding car, they'd be out of carmaking very fast. If Bose can't make headphones that don't self-ignite, they should not be making headphones.

Consider that Bose is breaking the law if they don't report this incident to CPSC[1].

And if you have a spare minute (which you seem to, given that you wrote the post and comment), please file a consumer safety report[2] and report the Bose QC-35 II headphones as unsafe product.

It is a simple form, and it is the way to make sure that this doesn't happen again to someone else. Aside from that, consider filing a lawsuit to get compensated for the damage to your physical health. Talk to a lawyer that can take your case pro-bono.

Thank you for the time you took to report this here, and I am very sorry that Bose screwed you over like that. Please let me know if I can help with the CPSC report to prevent them doing this to others.

[1]https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Recall-Guidance...

[2]https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting

> If someone were to make a self-exploding car, they'd be out of carmaking very fast.

I fully agree with the rest of what you're saying, but that's simply not true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-f...

https://www.inquirer.com/business/cars-battery-fires-fear-la...

Alas. Nevertheless, from the article:

>“We don’t think every vehicle has this rare manufacturing defect,” General Motors spokesman Dan Flores said. “But we can’t take a chance, so we’re recalling all the vehicles.”

I mean, that comes pretty close to be out of electric car making.

The same should happen to Bose. A total recall of all wireless headphones they ever made would be a good start.

-------

PS: I'm spending more time in headphones than I do in my car; it's fair to hold them to the same standard.

Thank you, filed.

Thank you for helping the public out!

Now, if you have energy to simply talk to a lawyer, I suspect it's going to be a slam-dunk case (I'm not a lawyer). They shouldn't get away with offering you a new pair of headphones to replace the one that almost killed you, and caused bodily damage.

If someone threw acid on you in the street, it would be considered assault, and they'd spend years in jail if found and charged. We really don't need to let corporations get away with the same.

> If someone threw acid on you in the street

Intentionally?

Either way.

It doesn't have to be intentional. It does generally has to be foreseeable. If I throw acid out my front door onto the sidewalk without looking and some passerby happens to pass through the stream, I should be held responsible for my recklessness even if I didn't intend it.

Bose engineers surely understand the risks inherent in their batteries.

Sure but do you see any signs of recklessness in this case? Your comment kind of assumes that (or worse), whereas it's far from obvious to me.

Well that would be up to the courts to decide.

Depends on whether Bose engineers were unaware of risks of lithium batteries to the extent that they didn't put any warnings on the product, safe from a recommendation to "remove" the headphones if the user experiences a "warming sensation".

Could it be the case that Bose thought that "warming sensation" is the worst that could happen? Let's see what the comments here say!

>In the end you're carrying a high energy density power source on your head that would love to just catch fire. Don't they teach kids anything in chemistry these days?

>I mean I’m glad it didn’t happen to me, but a billion people are carrying around billions of Lithium-ion batteries. Those batteries sometimes catch fire because Lithium is highly flammable. It’s gonna happen.

>Nothing is perfectly safe, that is how lithium batteries fail. You should know so you can properly deal with problems.

>Well, at lease EVs are spontaneously catching fire.

>Everyone is aware of the risks, there were a bunch of stories about airplane cell phone fires a few years ago.

>lithium battery fires are really nasty, and that's why he got a chemical burn. LiPF6 is a contact irritant, PF5 it decomposes to is a gas, and also a respiratory irritant, and HF PH5 decomposes in the air is a dangerous poisonous acid. This is what everybody visiting a lithium battery factory is told on safety orientation. In case there is fire in the factory, run, preferably until you are few blocks away.

I don't even know what to think. I guess they just didn't know.

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