Because they didn't design it around that possibility. If the battery blows up, regardless of cause, it should do so in a controlled manner which minimizes the harm caused to the wearer.
The problem here being.. that Bose loses money?
Or maybe, just maybe, they figure out a way to make headphones that are both safe and marketable?
The idea of free market includes the notion of failing in the free market. Which is exactly what Bose did here.
1/1,000,000 chance of getting chemical burns is fine by me.
That's fine by me too, and Bose should market the headphones with the description "1/10^6 chance of getting chemical burns".
Then the people who don't find it fine by them can make a rational choice about buying or not buying that product.
See, the public has this unreasonable expectation about wireless headphones being as safe as wired ones. Silly public. Can't fathom why they would think that way, with all the warnings of potential chemical burns in the product manuals.
Oh wait.
That decision is, indeed, up to Bose.
But should they choose to continue making a headphones that have a 1-in-N-million chance of exploding, this should be clearly indicated on every pair they sell.
So that their competitors who choose to invest in safety would be able to reap the fruit if their labor in the free market.
Also nobody has died so...
You are aware that wired headphones exist, right?
Also, quite a leap from "Bose shouldn't make headphones that explode while being used, like QC-35 II" to "if we ask for that, this will make all headphones heavy enough to cause neck problems and cost North of $600".
Self-exploding headphones were not a problem we had for most of the time headphones existed. There's no reason to introduce it, nor accept it.
>Also nobody has died so...
Oh, so someone has to die instead of merely being injured for you to care? That's hardly compassionate, but understandable.
How about we settle for the middle ground of the following being included with each pair:
"BOSE Quite Comfort QC 35 II. You might experience bodily injury during normal operation of this product. Also nobody has died, so..."
Lithium-ion are the best we have right now, and they "explode" (catch fire I think is more accurate) when damaged.
Do I want better battery chemistries that are more robust? Of course.
Am I going to hold this against Bose or any other battery-powered device manufacturer until we do? No.
I'm not entirely sure why this got downvoted (bit of a personal gripe with YC (anonymous down voting/spamming without a direct comment).. buuuut
This idea is only 'silly' if you think of it as a large amount of lead lining.
In this day-in-age, I'm sure the idea of a material/substance around it that stops combustion when something like this happens is surely not out of reach.. I'm as far away from a chemical engineer as you can get, but, if it requires oxygen to burn, maybe some incredibly strong substance around it to contain the chemicals if the battery expands. Or some to absorb oxygen around it.
I dunno, maybe I'm incredibly naive, but it feels like something that, if a portion of the companies that manufacturer/use the batteries put effort into something, it's something that could be made _more_ safe in some way?
Surely the idea of the world putting some effort into producing a material that can help stop this happening isn't completely stupid...?
HN, the forum of innovators who are vehemently against innovation if it's for the sake of consumer safety.
I mean, come one people, it's a business opportunity. Figure out how to make non-self-exploding headphones, with a guarantee, and crush Bose in the free market on that selling point.
Sigh.
Bit of a stretch to say you're "pro-innovation" in this context.
Because we are on HackerNews, where the consequences of their own actions only exist for individuals and not the corporations they hope to be CEOs of one day.
I didn't realize that I'd need to argue, in 2021, that selling people dangerous products as safe is, in principle, wrong, but here we are.
To people asking "What did the OP expect", the answer is: whatever the instruction manual said on Page 1. And it surely didn't say: "WARNING: MAY KILL YOU DURING NORMAL OPERATION".
Once it does, we can have a discussion about everything else.
Tbh it probably wouldn't take much to get that added to the boilerplate warnings of every battery product sold, just in case.
Heck, wired headphone makers will get a boost from that.