Samsung May Permanently Disable Galaxy Note 7 Phones In The US As Soon As Next Week (theverge.com)

Those who are still clinging on to their Galaxy Note 7, even after Samsung recalled the devices due to faulty batteries in mid-September, may want to seriously reconsider returning them to the Korean company. The Verge has obtained an image of an alert that went out to at least one Note 7 owner on U.S. Cellular today stating that, "As of December 15th, Samsung will modify the software to prevent the Galaxy Note 7 from charging. The phone will no longer work." The Verge reports: It's not clear whether Note 7s will be disabled across the major U.S. carriers as well, but it seems likely that'll be the case. In the past, updates disabling Note 7 features have rolled out across Verizon, ATT, and other carriers within a matter of days. That's probably what'll happen here, as well. By preventing the phone from charging, Samsung takes the final step to making the phone entirely unusable. It's still offering Note 7 owners the ability to fully return the phone or exchange it for another Samsung device. As of November 4th, when Samsung last provided an update, 85 percent of Note 7s sold in the U.S. had been recovered. That still left around 285,000 phones unaccounted for. Completely disabling the phone seems to be Samsung's last-ditch effort to either recover the remaining devices or remove what risk they still pose to consumers.

Comments

Interesting

[nehumanuscrede]

-tinfoilhat-

It does make you think a bit that if they have this ability, what's to keep any carrier from nudging down the percentage your phone will charge it's battery over time with each update ? With most batteries soldered in place, it would be a fantastic way to force folks to buy a new phone.

Crazy idea ? Of course it is, then again VW got caught red handed cheating the emissions systems via software. Remember, where money is involved, there is no limit to what companies are willing to do.

While I understand that batteries degrade over time, now I'm curious if it's truly the battery that's giving out or if the folks wanting to sell you more phones have a hand in it.

-/tinfoilhat-

Re:Really?

[rmdingler]

I never understood their decisions...why disable the phone when you can redesign the battery to not blow up and just swap batteries? I mean the battery is a removable part.

They actually gave the battery angle a look for a quick fix, but since they had abandoned the easily removable battery, the initial solution was to limit recharging to 60% of maximum via update.

Now, is the ingrained ability to limit charging capacity a little suspicious?

Re:So, if you turn the phone off,

[Harlequin80]

Normally a fully charged LIPO cell is 4.8v and a fully used lipo cell is at 3.3v. The charging circuit inside the phone will have somewhere a variable set to 4.8v as max cell voltage and that will be where it stops charging the battery. It should be pretty trivial to change that to 3.3v and hence the phone will no longer charge the battery.

You can't dumb charge lipos. If you keep shoving amps into them they will overcharge and go pop. So even if the phone is powered down when plugged into a power source the charging controller would have to be active.

Re:Really?

[Ol Olsoc]

I never understood their decisions...why disable the phone when you can redesign the battery to not blow up and just swap batteries? I mean the battery is a removable part.

Apparently the battery is too big physically for the space allotted for it. Batteries expand when heated/charged. A teardown revealed this https://www.cnet.com/news/gala... (beware, the assholes have an autoplaying video.

This is all redolent of the marketing issues I've often spoke about with phones. "Users need longer battery life! Users need thinner phones! Users need wireless charging!"

Size and battery capacity are opposing traits. And while compressing a Li based battery of high energy density is never a good idea, they designed a phone that did just that. reducing the margin of error to no margin of error, and when you get a positive feedback loop like a battery expanding with nowhere to go, yet getting hotter and expanding more, you get the Galaxy Note 7 phone.

So if they did replace the battery with a new one of proper size, it would not have as much capacity, so marketing would be pissed.

Re:Really?

[Ol Olsoc]

No?

It's part and parcel with all lithium ion batteries that the charge circuitry *must& limit charging or the thing explodes. That's how these chargers work.

No on your no. Limiting charge to 60 percent is exactly what you would expect on a phone that has a battery compartment that is too small for the battery in it. They were desperately trying to eliminate battery expansion and compression within it's compartment. Unfortunately, that didn't work.

At one point, I felt a little badly for Samsung, but after the facts came out, this was engineers bowing to marketing pressure, and marketing has seldom been able to break the laws of physics.

There is an engineering term called a "Blivet". Its defined as trying to put 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound container. the Note 7 phone was a Blivet.