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15,000 Hoverboards Seized As Unsafe In United Kingdom (nationaltradingstandards.uk)
puddingebola writes: National Trading Standards and trading standards services in Scotland have released figures that 15,000 of 17,000 hoverboards have been seized at ports of entry in the UK because of safety concerns. The boards were seized "due to a range of concerns, such as safety issues with the plug, cabling, charger, battery or the cut-off switch within the board, which often fails." Are we pushing hoverboard technology too far too quickly, or are there just a group of criminal sociopaths manufacturing unsafe devices at Christmastime and pumping them into the market? Mashable has a story summary with links to video of a man in Alabama with his hoverboard on fire. The government of New York City isn't so hot on hoverboards, either.
Hoverboards? What year is this?
These are those silly two-wheeled "segway with no handle" contraptions that are all the fad this year. Bought in by the container load from the Pearl River Delta for half nothing and sold in shops for £499 a pop.
I still don't get why they are called "hoverboards" when they are in constant contact with the ground?!
The BBC article on this subject makes clear that these are cheap, unbranded Chinese and East Asian knock-offs with a documented history demonstrating that they (and specifically their chargers) are a fire risk. That BBC piece really should have been TFA.
There are some oddities around these "hoverboards", in the UK, though. Specifically, it's illegal to operate one on either a public road or a pavement, meaning that they are legal only for use on private land. Technically, I think, the same is true of Segways.
Why not grab a shipment of Ford cars being brought into the country too. And how about them iPhones with pesky rare earth minerals extracted from war torn nations? And lets not forget DeBeer's stash of diamonds illegally exported from South Africa. We should take them as they have the potential to release CO2 into the atmosphere if they were super cooled and dropped into a vat of liquid oxygen!
Radio control enthusiasts have known those batteries are very sensitive for years. Don't over heat them and don't shock them. Between the lowest bidder manufacturing these things and the number of crashes that occur in use of the hoverboards, this was probably bound to happen.
Would governments ban hoverboards (or other fun yet somewhat less safe devices, like bicycles) if it was determined there were savings to be made to universal health plans? Does the public good of tax savings/resources outweigh individual choice of risks?
What about universal fire fighting service? Which is probably more relevant, since the BBC article references two fires in two weeks in London due to these devices.
Bicycles are considered healthy, and are slightly subsidised (reduced tax if bought through your employer to use to cycle to work).
Well... duh. What't not made in China these days?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
they clearly DONT hover.
No, and plenty of "hoverboards" are legally imported into and sold in the UK without being impounded. Just as plenty of Segways are imported and sold, despite being subject to similar restrictions around use on public roads.
The problem here is that for a story which has had a fair bit of coverage in the press today, the article selected as TFA is a really bad one and gives very little detail of the case. The hoverboards which were seized were cheap knock-offs, sold for substantially less than the "branded" devices. They don't meet UK electrical safety rules, so they are seized and destroyed. The same would go for any other electrical device that didn't meet those rules.
Three fires in London over ten days in October:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...
Are we pushing hoverboard technology too far too quickly, or are there just a group of criminal sociopaths manufacturing unsafe devices at Christmastime and pumping them into the market?
It's the latter, obviously.
Unsafe charging has nothing to do with the, ahem, "hovering" technology.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Hoverboard users running into me on the sidewalk will be balanced by watching them accidentally run into small bumps and fall flat on their stupid faces.
By many, many factories that quickly retooled to create competing variations on the concept, presumably many of these are poorly designed and could ruin the potential market for ones that work well.
http://boingboing.net/2015/11/...
There are 'manufacturers' (using the term very loosely here) in China and other Asian countries, who produce whatever cheap shitty garbage they can, and sell it to the West. There's little to no quality control of any kind, and they really don't give a damn about the consequences, they only care about profit.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
My hoverboard is full of eels.
UK is the only place I know of where appliances are sold without power cords.
This law they are afraid of driving it needs rethinking.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
He probably thinks the Nanny State passed Ohm's Law.
"The MonoRover's power adapter is legitimately scary."
Best Slashdot Co
There was actually a very timely Planet Money podcast on how the hoverboards were developed. Apparently the concept was created by a Chinese inventor who quickly lost control of the idea to the Shenzhen wild west where dozens of firms began creating variants of the hoverboard. Given the nature of how the product was introduced, through numerous companies with no clear originating firm, it's no surprise why you have so many quality control issues without a single manufacturer that has a "brand" on these hoverboards they're trying to maintain.
It's going to be Jarts again for Christmas.
Have gnu, will travel.
How is it Apple's fault, when it was a replacement battery, and the third party person who replaced it left a tiny screw that punctured the battery, when the put everything back together?
BBC One's Watchdog episode on later today has a segment on so called "hover boards".
Is the government going to seize matches now?
Matches have been known to start fires, btw.
Please stop. PLEASE
.
These are silly two-wheeled "segway with no handle" contraptions, not hoverboards. Not even close.
PPN
I am still waiting for my self drying jacket and self lacing shoes.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Is the government going to seize matches now?
Matches have been known to start fires, btw.
People are well aware of the danger of matches, and of the two kinds of matches (safety / traditional) all brands are similar. They aren't well aware of the significantly greater danger of some brands of these toys.
I don't know the detail of the law, but I think you can still buy one of these dangerous toys -- but you'd need to import it yourself, and it needs to be clear that you don't intend to resell it. (The regulations are called "trading standards", they're rules for retailers.) This is how things like cheap Android development boards are imported, since they don't meet the criteria for shielded electronics etc.
They are for idiots, be thankful you no longer have to guess who is the douche, you can tell right away by the wheels under their feet and the Apple watch on their wrist.
You thought multirotors ("drones") were the threat? Think again; as you are far more likely to be injured by an idiot on one of these than by a multirotor.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Yeah, except these are knockoff devices, with unsafe electrics.
Some idiot falling off his stupid not-a-Segway isn't what the concern here is. The concern is same idiot plugging it in to charge, and burning down his apartment complex because it's a cheap knockoff that was wired by an incompetent, and has batteries with known failed cells that rupture when bumped around too much... you know, kind of like when an idiot falls off his stupid not-a-Segway.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Yeah evil gubbermint banning the sale of dodgy things liable to catch fire.
Your house burns down and you die? Vote with your wallet and don't buy from that company again. FFS people should take personal responsibility for their actions.
Sodding nanny state. I'll bet it's the EU's fault. Yeah.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
UK is the only place I know of where appliances are sold without power cords.
Really? I live in the UK and regularly buy appliances of various kinds and they have always come with a power cord, so this is news to me. I can just about remember a time when it was standard for devices to come without a plug and you were expected to wire your own on (presumably a hang over from the change in plug types and the fact that older ones were still in common usage for a while), but it's been a requirement for them to come with plugs for probably 20+ years.
NYC is infamous for things like cops running out into the street and attacking cyclists, or parking their cruisers in bike lanes and then ticketing cyclists for not riding in the bike lane.
Despite the public outcry and idiocy of that, were up to the same thing the next year.
And then the year after that...
Please help metamoderate.
It came in the mail yesterday, direct from China. I tested it last night, seems to work fine. Haven't charged it yet, it was already charged up when I unboxed it.
Mine is the larger 8-inch second generation unit with the Bluetooth connection. This type: http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB...
According to the info I just gleaned from this thread, the device itself is fine and it's a defective charger that could cause a fire, specifically the power cut-off that detects a fully charged battery and automatically stops delivering juice to the battery.... this feature could be non-functional. So my plan for tonight is:
-Test charge the unit for the first time, keeping it and the charger in a relatively safe area in case of a fire, and keeping a fire extinguisher on hand.
-According to the (very poorly written, in broken English) manual, a normal charging cycle takes about 2-3 hours. So make sure to always manually disconnect the charger after 2 hours and not rely on the auto power cutoff.
Lucky I didn't have time to play around with the thing more yesterday, if I did then I would've probably left it charging overnight. Also lucky I came across this information literally hours after I took delivery of the device.
No, electric dryers and stoves in the US have cords that are sold separately, since there are apparently several different plug configurations. (Strange that there is no standard.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Didn't stop people described as "aviation hobbyists" from building and using them.
Lots of people did lots of unsafe things in those.
And now they're safer than cars.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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Do not taunt Happy Fun Board.
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Georg Ohm was an SJW.
You are welcome on my lawn.
a group of criminal sociopaths manufacturing unsafe devices at Christmastime
I believe they're called Chinese.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Several = two.
There are two standards, since some mid-1990s NEC. Before then, 208/240V 3-prong was the standard. In the 1990s, the NEC added an equipment ground requirement for 240V appliances and all new installations in the USA since 2004 require the use of 4-prong receptacles. Since most houses still have 3-prong receptacles, you need to buy the appropriate cord.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
and by "hoverboard technology" the writer actually means "cheap chinese knockoffs with bad wiring"
By the way, why the fuck are we calling these things 'hoverboards' when there is absolutely no hovering involved? It's a segway without the handle thing, and less capable.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
He probably thinks the Nanny State passed Ohm's Law.
there was a lot of resistance to that one. but it's currently on the books because it passed with enough volts
gah. i really had to force that last one in there :/
Sympathy for some shady fuck that makes an unsafe product very liable to burn your fucking house down? What is your planet of origin? Oh, right, another AC neocon/free market jerk-off post.
Dryers have to be 30A. If you have some kind of older circuit with a higher rating, it should be downrated (with a lower breaker). I think the biggest reason the cord isn't included is so that the warehouse store can charge an extra $20.