Owners of Samsung Galaxy Note7 Urged to Stop Using the Phones
Feds warn of fire risk in midst of global recall
South Korea–based Samsung has issued a global recall of its Galaxy Note7 smartphone after fires resulted from overheating of its lithium-ion batteries. Photo by Flicker contributor Aaron Yoo
As passengers prepared to board flights at US airports on Sunday, along with the usual safety announcements came one instructing owners of Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones to power the devices down and leave them off throughout the flight. Samsung, along with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), issued a warning Saturday to all customers who have bought one of the new phones to stop using them immediately after reports that the lithium-ion batteries used to power the phones were overheating and bursting into flames. (There have been at least three dozen reports of the phone igniting while charging or during normal use.)
The world’s largest smartphone maker, Samsung has issued a global recall, but is still working out details for replacing the jumbo phones. To date, the company has sold more than a million of the phones. US carriers have stopped selling them and are working out how to handle customer returns. Find more information here about how to return a recalled Galaxy Note7 phone to Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T.
Lithium-ion batteries pack a lot of power into a small package. When these batteries overheat and burst, the results can be serious, the CPSC said in its September 9 statement.
“The CPSC is working quickly to determine whether a replacement Galaxy Note7 is an acceptable remedy for Samsung or their phone carriers to provide to consumers,” the statement said. The CPSC advises consumers to report product safety incidents involving lithium-ion batteries in smartphones to the agency here.
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