Samsung has seen at least two reports of its Galaxy S7 Edge exploding, and US authorities are warning of exploding washing machines and an accidentally crushed tablet burnt on a plane.
With a report of an iPhone 7 Plus exploding in transit, with a question of whether the device was externally punctured or not (see iTWire article here) the tech industry is having a bad couple of months.
Of course, if you take ANY device powered by a lithium-ion battery, and you puncture or break that battery, you will have a runaway thermal event that WILL cause a fire.
This was evident when a smartphone was lost down the back of a seat on a Qantas flight to New York. When the seat was reclined, it broke the smartphone and unfortunately ignited a fire, although the brand of phone was not reported.
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A Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet also caugh fire on a Delta flight from Detroit to Amsterdam, where the tablet was wedged between seats and, when the tablet was inevitably broken by seat movement, caused the tablet to catch fire, too.
An ancient Samsung Galaxy Note 2 also reportedly caught fire on a flight in India last week, according to Fortune.
But with Samsung’s Note7 recall well underway, despite fears that too many existing Note7 users globally are ignoring the recall, there are also fears that some Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones are also exploding.
A Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge reportedly caused a house fire in Painesville, Cleveland.
Trusted Reviews has an article on an S7 Edge catching fire in the Philippines.
The S7 Edge just won the T3 award for Phone of the Year, although one cannot help but wonder whether the Note7 would have won the award had it not been so explosively received in the marketplace.
Also, despite Chinese Galaxy Note 7 phones reportedly using different batteries to those sold in other countries, a Chinese Note 7 owner has posted startling video of a Note7 smoking, as can be seen here.
Bloomberg has reported on this, too.
Here’s the tweeted photo of the Samsung tablet after it burned:
PHOTO Samsung Tablet suffered a thermal runaway on Delta Airlines Flight #DL138 after getting jammed in a seat. pic.twitter.com/zxOYb1MHn7
— Air Disasters (@AirCrashMayday) September 26, 2016
To make matters even worse, BetaNews is reporting that a "replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has battery problems too".
Forbes contributor Jay McGregor has gone so far as to boldly proclaim the Note7 "finished"' but that's likely just adding unneccesary fuel to the fire.
Finally, following on from the continued risk of Samsung washing machines of a particular model being prone to catching fire in Australia, with tens of thousands of affected machines still unidentified and a fire risk in Australia, as reported at iTWire here, US regulators are warning about exploding washing machines in the US.