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Samsung Could Face Second Recall As US Probes Burnt Phone (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the more-trouble-ahead dept.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are investigating Wednesday's incident, when a passenger's phone emitted smoke on a Southwest Airlines plane readying for departure from Louisville, Kentucky. Bloomberg reports: "If it's the fixed phone and it started to smoke in his pocket, I'm going to guess there'll be another recall," said Pamela Gilbert, a former executive director of the consumer agency. "That just doesn't sound right." Samsung has been engulfed in crisis since the Note 7 smartphones began to burst into flames just days after hitting the market in August. The Suwon, South Korea-based company announced last month that it would replace all 2.5 million phones sold globally at that point. Samsung said it had uncovered the cause of the battery fires and that it was certain new phones wouldn't have the same flaws. The first indications of the existing recall's financial impact could be seen Friday with the company's release of earnings that rose at the slowest pace in five quarters. Operating income increased just 5.5 percent to 7.8 trillion won ($7 billion) in the three months ended Sept. 30.

21 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. A recall from just a single occurrence? by JoeyRox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I understand how sensitive authorities will be to any battery issue on the Note 7 post-recall, but nearly every Li-Ion phone model has had these kinds of thermal runaway events, including the iPhone. It's premature to start talking about a second recall before the investigation on the Southwest Airlines event has even started in earnest.

    1. Re:A recall from just a single occurrence? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Informative

      3) This is a phone with the original fault, unfixed. They haven't ruled that out yet.

      From The Verge article on the incident:

      More worrisome is the fact that the phone in question was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, one that was deemed to be safe by Samsung. The Verge spoke to Brian Green, owner of the Note 7, on the phone earlier today and he confirmed that he had picked up the new phone at an AT&T store on September 21st. A photograph of the box shows the black square symbol that indicates a replacement Note 7 and Green said it had a green battery icon.

      [...]

      Running the phone's IMEI (blurred for privacy reasons) through Samsung's recall eligibility checker returns a "Great News!" message saying that Green's Galaxy Note 7 is not affected by the recall.

      Unless some fraud took place (either someone swapping an original device into his new box or the guy trying to pass off an original device as a new one for some twisted reason), we can say that it's NOT an original device.

  2. Non removable battery FTW by burtosis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know it helps with water resistance ease of manufacturing, but when will phone manufacturers reconsider the whole non removable battery issue? Apple was a leading "innovator" of this, now it's being adopted industry wide and we are seeing losses exceeding a billion dollars of valuation. A user removable battery would streamline much of a recall process while adding safety to boot.

    Now if only a lack of a USB card and headphone jack would start fires we may see some actual positive changes.

    1. Re:Non removable battery FTW by Aaden42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's common sense and physics. The additional plastic of the battery housing, the internal space in the phone to make a user-serviceable space inside, the exterior cover and latching mechanism to hold it on, etc. All of those things take up space and add weight. That space could be more lithium or a smaller, lighter phone.

      You can convince me otherwise when you can demonstrate two designs (one with an integrated battery and one removable) that yield the same battery capacity and device size & weight using the same battery technology.

    2. Re:Non removable battery FTW by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

      As a user, I'd prefer replaceable battery. It's not a phone, but my older son has a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet. After a year and a half, it began having battery issues. It wouldn't charge at all - showing a charging screen but recycling as if we kept pulling the plug and plugging it back in. We tested other cords and it didn't work. I finally bought a battery online and paid someone to open the case (after I failed to be able to) and replace the battery. This fixed it for about 8 months, but his tablet started this up again. Still, replacing the battery should be as easy as buying a replacement online, popping the case open, putting the new battery in, and snapping the case back on.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    3. Re:Non removable battery FTW by Thruen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I see a lot of people saying they'd prefer a phone with a removable battery. Here's the thing: They exist, you have that option, everyone does and nobody takes it. Phones with removable batteries don't sell very well and that's why you don't see them advertised all over the place nor do you see manufacturers trying to pack in more features when it's not worth the effort for them. I know, everyone wants to believe the lack of removable batteries is so you'll be forced to replace your phone due to a dead battery instead of getting a new battery. I am going to tell you what my S/O who has sold this stuff for the last decade has told me repeatedly: They made a lot more selling extra batteries than they do selling replacement phones, there has been no notable increase in the rate at which people replace phones while we've made the move to non-removable batteries, and it's actually less common that people come in with complaints about their battery now than before as batteries now typically work well for as long as the average consumer uses their phone. It's also worth pointing out that, back when replaceable batteries were common, folks would often complain about the short lifespan of their batteries claiming they were being forced to buy replacements just to keep their phone on for a day at a time.

      I know, I've been using the same phone for years, too. I could use a replaceable battery as mine is not holding a charge the way it used to. We are the minority, most folks don't suffer many ill effects from not being able to replace the battery in their phone. This situation is a fluke, and even after this you will only see a very small minority of folks talking about the need for replaceable batteries. The vast majority of consumers don't care about replaceable batteries and wouldn't really benefit from them.

    4. Re:Non removable battery FTW by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      My 200m water-resistant divers watch uses a 0.3mm gasket.

      0.3mm.

      0.3..

      Get back to me when that number has sunk in.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:Non removable battery FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is a little problem with that... Your watch needs a new O-Ring every time you open it and replace the battery. Otherwise it's VERY likely that it will no longer be 200m water resistant.

      Besides, in order to get away with such a thin O-ring, you need 2 flat surfaces that do not move against each other. Easy to do in a watch, a lot harder in a phone that is much bigger.

    6. Re:Non removable battery FTW by macs4all · · Score: 2

      As a user, I'd prefer replaceable battery. It's not a phone, but my older son has a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet. After a year and a half, it began having battery issues. It wouldn't charge at all - showing a charging screen but recycling as if we kept pulling the plug and plugging it back in. We tested other cords and it didn't work. I finally bought a battery online and paid someone to open the case (after I failed to be able to) and replace the battery. This fixed it for about 8 months, but his tablet started this up again. Still, replacing the battery should be as easy as buying a replacement online, popping the case open, putting the new battery in, and snapping the case back on.

      If you had two battery failures that quickly, there is something wrong with the charging-circuit. My iPad 2. which is almost 5 years old, is still on its original battery, still gets about the same battery life as it did when new, and gets used HEAVILY each and every day.

      Samsung needs to stop baking their batteries to death with each charge cycle.

    7. Re:Non removable battery FTW by Thruen · · Score: 2

      Are you suggesting companies should develop and produce products that they expect only a small minority of the market will have any interest in over products with broader appeal? Ignorance is rife.

      If it's not a selling point for most people, it's not as profitable a pursuit as that which is a selling point for most people. This isn't rocket science. As I said, you can still purchase a phone with a replaceable battery so for the few people that want it it's there, but you can't expect them to make an alternate version of every phone just for you and the six other people who care enough to not buy the phone with a built-in battery.

    8. Re:Non removable battery FTW by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Hey, we're special snowflakes. Companies should listen to us on tech issues? Right.

      Besides, this entire argument is silly. You can replace an iPhone battery when it gets weak. Takes about 20 minutes. If you don't have the technical chops to do it yourself, Apple will do it for $100 and Juanita at the mall will do it for $40 in two hours.

      Back to explosions ....

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    9. Re:Non removable battery FTW by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

      Your 200m water-resistant divers watch doesn't contain a 2500+ mAh lithium-ion battery that has lots of safety regulation around it, concerning shielding, casing, latches, connectors, etc. that are required with a removable battery.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  3. Ruin it for the rest of us by Dan+East · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let's hope this doesn't lead to the typical FAA overreaction and banning of the use of any electronics in flight until they can spend years deciding that it's safe. Like how WiFi devices were going to start causing planes to drop out of the sky. And somehow cellular communication is still suspect (or at least it's suspected that it will result in a reduction of Airline revenue if people can use their own data and make calls in-flight using the standard cellular network).

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Ruin it for the rest of us by burtosis · · Score: 2

      You are far too high up for a cell phone to work on a typical flight. Only during takeoff and landing would you be close enough to towers. Also if you are moving too fast that may cause issues as well.

      It can't be that dangerous because fully 1/4 of people never shut off their phone and at least one in twenty is texting, updating Facebook, or straight up placing a call on take offs and landings. I fly a lot and it's amusing how low the level of compliance is.

  4. So it's Apple's fault that Samsung screwed up? by Brannon · · Score: 2

    Apple has had non-user replaceable batteries since the original iPhone (almost 10 years now) and they haven't lost a billion in valuation due to that.

  5. That's what happens. by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    I like Samsung phones, but I'm glad I didn't end up with a Note 7. But every corporation is out there trying to cut every corner they can, and this is the chance they are taking.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  6. Removable batteries by emil · · Score: 3, Informative

    All of this would have been avoidable with removable batteries.

    Lithium-Ion batteries are required to implement five separate safety systems to prevent these combustion events.

    Samsung is having quality-control issues. If the batteries were removable, the situation would not be trashing the company, but this does serve poetic justice.

    1. Re:Removable batteries by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      All of this would have been avoidable with removable batteries.

      Why? They can explode and fail like other batteries. Just because you pull it out of the rest of the circuit doesn't mean you've isolated the problem. Samsung would still have to recall the batteries. It's just as easy to recall a phone entirely. Might have saved Samsung some money but that doesn't really change much of anything.

      Removable batteries are a whole other conversation, but bad QA is bad QA. Hell, the batteries on the 787 were removable. Didn't help Boeing much.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Removable batteries by mcisely · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fixing Boeing's problem didn't require replacing the entire plane.

  7. Re:Where are the shills now? by macs4all · · Score: 2

    Hi Apple fanboi!

    Hello back, Anonymous COWARD!

  8. Re:Where are the shills now? by tripleevenfall · · Score: 2

    Doesn't the fact that the phone which started smoking was a replacement phone raise any eyebrows on Slashdot? Like maybe they tried and failed, and the issue still hasn't been fixed?

    Sure, most phones are safe, I'm typing this on a Note 7 now, it's just that a fe