Inside Samsung’s self-combusting phone

Samsung, the world’s biggest smartphone maker, will want to forget this past month quickly.

It has been nightmarish for Samsung and its recent release, Galaxy Note 7. Even if you don’t follow tech news, chances are that you’ve heard about the self-combusting Galaxy Note 7.
The bad news comes on the heels of a really good year for Samsung.

The firm started with the new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge that introduced further refinements to the already well-received Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and S6 Edge+.

The introduction of the now problematic Galaxy Note 7 was also well received. It was supposed to be an affirmation that Samsung remains the “King of Android” that can easily slug it out with the iPhone and Apple’s massive cult-like following.

Then the unimagined happened. Barely weeks after release of the Galaxy Note 7, reports of devices exploding were already circulating in the media.
Samsung has received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the US, including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage.

Airlines started banning use of Note 7 handsets in flights, among other advisories. Eventually, Samsung admitted there was some manufacturing defect in some of the batteries shipped with the Note 7.

Consequently, Samsung halted sales of the device in 10 markets, including South Korea and the United States.

The company also launched a software update for the Note 7 that will help owners distinguish whether their Note 7 has been impacted by the recall. The software will display a green battery icon on the phone’s status bar to indicate that the phone is unaffected.

To repair its reputation, Samsung announced a recall of one million Note 7 devices.

And so that the customer is sure to buy the unaffected Note 7 device, the next batch of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices will include a large circular label with an S across the white barcode label, indicating that the device is safe.

GENERATING EXCESS HEAT

That should make it much easier for customers to distinguish between those Note 7s that pose a risk, and those that are safe to use.

Samsung has indicated that a production error resulted in pressure on plates within the batteries, bringing positive and negative poles into contact — in turn generating excess heat.

A spate of battery-related issues have dogged tech companies over the years — often on a bigger scale.

A decade ago, Dell recalled 4.1 million notebook computers after reports of overheating batteries that occasionally burst into flames.

That same year, in 2006, a similar issue caused a recall of 1.1 million battery packs for Apple notebooks.

Earlier this year, glitches in lithium-ion batteries forced the recall of more than 100,000 computers from Hewlett Packard and Toshiba computers.

If you had ordered or were planning to get yourself the Samsung Note 7, you will have to wait a little longer until the safety of the phone is assured and the sales resume.

But if you own a Note 7 already, and unsure of its safety, return it. The incidents so far have been troubling, but thankfully, no one has died.

The company has been ordered to carry out extensive tests to make sure the batteries shipped with the Galaxy Note 7 are safe for public use.

The order, which comes directly from the government of Samsung’s home nation, South Korea, means that the market is not sure of when the Note 7 will be back in circulation and all the defective devices substituted.

Wambugu is an informatics specialist. [email protected] @samwambugu2