New Fidget Spinners Are Catching On Fire (newsweek.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek's latest story about fidget spinners: In a development that now seems like it was inevitable, the three-pronged toys are starting to catch on fire. Gizmodo on Thursday pointed to two recent instances of Bluetooth-enabled fidget spinners going up in flames while they were charging. In Alabama, a fidget spinner owned by the son of Gardendale woman Kimberly Allums caught fire after being plugged in for less than 45 minutes. In Fenton, Michigan, Michelle Carr said her spinner started smoking after charging for less than half an hour. "He noticed that it burst into flames and he just started screaming," said Allums of her son and his spinner. "I was downstairs and all I heard was 'fire...fire,' and the fidget spinner had literally, It wasn't smoking, It was in flames"... The fidget spinners in question were Bluetooth-enabled so that they could light up and play music as they spun.
Friday CNET ran a column titled "Fidget spinners exploding? Of course they are." It concludes with a warning that "if you choose a powered off-brand tech item, you better pay close attention when you plug it in."

Comments

burning

[nastyphil]

It's not a bad thing.

Fidget Spinners Are Catching On Fire

[ZippyTheChicken]

See Atheists there is a God

Re:Fidget Spinners Are Catching On Fire

[blindseer]

Not necessarily the christian god.
Could for example be the god of destruction (of fidget spinners).

Shiva has spoken!

Or something.

Lest just call it

[JustNiz]

natural selection

Re:Lest just call it

[No Longer an AC]

Some of us live in multi-unit housing. At least I'm not in some building like Grenfell Tower. I'm sure I could get out alive if my neighbor starts a fire with their cigarettes, Samsung phone, hoverboard or now fidget spinner but that would still be very inconvenient to say the least.

Perhaps I'm just old, but...

[Kierthos]

Can someone explain to me why someone would need a Bluetooth enabled fidget spinner?

Re:Perhaps I'm just old, but...

[Calydor]

I am reminded of an old comic strip in which Mickey Mouse on one of his many adventures got tossed into the future, around year 3000 or so. Among other things, exercise bikes now came with an engine so you wouldn't over-exert yourself.

This is kinda like that.

Fidgets got it's maker nada

[Trax3001BBS]

"As the inventor of the original fidget spinner – the ubiquitous new toy that has quickly become a craze in playgrounds around the world – Catherine Hettinger should be enjoying the high life."

"Hettinger held the patent on finger spinners for eight years, but surrendered it in 2005 because she could not afford the $400 (£310) renewal fee."
https://www.theguardian.com/li...

Sounds more like...

[Anonymous Coward]

jumping the gun on when to patent it, and when to market it.

The fact that they became so popular 12 years after it was 'surrendered' and 20 years after it was patented indicates either a failure to market it correctly or a failure to wait to patent it when the market would bear it.

Either way it would have been out of patent this year so she wouldn't have made back the licensing fees anyway.

Re:Pro Tip for the manufacturing sector

[plover]

Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

You didn't run that idea all the way through the Capitalism 101 grinder: "if people will buy it, and you can make money selling it, sell it!" It's the practical application of the century-old P.T. Barnum quote, "There's a sucker born every minute."

Anyway, I've learned not to begrudge people for buying or selling useless-to-me items, just because I disapprove of their lack of utility. Why not? Because I'm not in their shoes, and I don't know what motivates them or makes them happy. Besides, I certainly don't want somebody else questioning my every purchase, just because they lack my imagination.