I have owned one of every generation of Apple Watch except one and have never seen this. The older watches have often been given to friends and family that did not have one and all have been well behaved.
Not sure if they are adaptable to smaller devices but newer designs of battery (LFP) are pushing out the Lithium Ion battery in the Solar Generator, BEV and other markets because they have better life and tend to be safer.
I’ve had 2 battery problems with 2 different 44mm Series 6 Apple Watches with AppleCare. Both problems happened about a year after I bought them. After calling Apple Tech Support to report the problems each time they immediately sent me a new Series 6 replacement and I returned to them the defective watches. This story doesn’t comport with my experience with Apple tech support.
I had a lot of trouble with batteries expanding and leaking, 6 batteries across two MBPs and two iPhones. The first time it happened, my trackpad stopped working and it took me a long time to realize that the battery was pressing it from below. When I finally bought that first replacement battery (older model with user-replaceable battery), the guy at the Apple Store told me that MacBook Pros should not be left plugged in when they’re not actively charging. Which of course I didn’t believe given that all of the laptops in the store were plugged in.
After years of frustration, I eventually realized that the devices I charged in my bedroom were having battery problems, but my iPads, which I always charged in the living room, never did. I put a $225 Furman PST-8D surge protector/power conditioner on the bedroom outlet, but not only did that not solve the problem, after several months the Furman completely died!
So now I just charge everything in the living room.
If the back my apple watch cracked, it would be staying in my house for whatever was going to happen next. Also, treatment for lead poisoning?!? That alone sounds scammy.
I wouldn't even keep it inside the house. It'd be sitting outside until I can take it to a disposal center. Did that with an old iPad that started to bulge up.
I have owned one of every generation of Apple Watch except one and have never seen this. The older watches have often been given to friends and family that did not have one and all have been well behaved.
Not sure if they are adaptable to smaller devices but newer designs of battery (LFP) are pushing out the Lithium Ion battery in the Solar Generator, BEV and other markets because they have better life and tend to be safer.
Unfortunately if you manufacture enough products with Li-ion batteries, your eventually going to have some with a fault and a runaway thermal condition.
As far as LFP, I they still lag a bit in energy density vs lithium ion, which is important in small form factor devices. Hopefully either a manufacturable solid state battery will be produced (relatively)soon, or the recent Lithium Sulphur advancements will lead to a manufacturable battery. Either way, I am not sure how many people are willing to sacrifice 15-20% battery life for a slightly safer phone.
I had a lithium ion battery self-combust. It was packed in a carry-on suitcase and stowed in the overhead bin of a flight destined for Germany. As the cabin crew was making final boarding preparations the bin started smoking. They quickly removed the bag and carried it off the plane to the tarmac where it proceeded to burn (despite the efforts of at least half a dozen firemen and assorted extinguishers). The flight finally departed about an hour late. Some months later I got a summons from the FAA (I think) proposing to fine me several thousand dollars for the incident notwithstanding the bag had passed several layers of federal scrutiny before I boarded the airplane.
LI batteries can, and do, self-immolate. They may be "safe" 99% of the time. But that 1% is a bear. There may be no warning whatsoever and, once it starts, almost nothing you can do about it except let it burn out. I can say with 100% conviction that my battery wasn't damaged, hadn't been subjected to any blows (sharp, dull or otherwise) or unusual temperatures. It was also relatively new -- not more than 6 months old.
I'm pretty sure that this kind of incident -- LI batteries self-immolating -- is far more common than any governmental agency will admit.
So all of the comments here about "scam" and "his own fault" etc. are, in my experience, pretty ignorant.
This is essentially true, but the percentage of failures is far smaller. People seem to have difficulty processing low-probability-high-risk scenarios. At least with reputable manufacturers, lithium ion battery technology is sound. They have a very, very low rate of 'self-immolation' failures. That's the low probability part.
The high-risk part is the scenario described above. When they go bad, they go really bad. You could be permanently disfigured. Your house could burn down. An airplane could burn and go down. That's the high-risk part.
So if the batteries in iPhones have a, say, 0.0001% failure rate, that's a really low probability - the proverbial one-in-a-million. That also means that if 2.2 billion iPhones have been sold, 2,200 of them had bad batteries in them. Likely some significant percentage of those were used and thrown out or recycled before the battery had a chance to catch fire, but a non-zero number of them became incendiary devices while in the possession of their owner.
So how do you deal with that? To the individual consumer, you have a one-in-a-million chance that your iPhone is a time-bomb. (Remember, this is just a speculative number.) Your chances are probably more favorable than that, though, because you still might be done with it before a bad one ever goes south. This is still way less likely than your chances of being struck by lightning during your lifetime (1:15,300), so you're probably good. To Apple, the odds are so low, the cost of settling out for the tiny few is a reserve line on the company ledger. For the airlines, even with everyone bringing phones, watches computers and other devices with batteries, the chances of one taking down a plane is non-zero but probably much less likely than any number of other risks, like Canada geese getting sucked into a jet engine.
If the odds become more likely for a failure or the nature of the failure becomes more significant, than the calculation changes. The Takata airbag incident is a good example of that. When originally manufactured, the actuaries likely considered failures that involved airbags not activating or not inflating as sufficiently as they aged. Then they learned that a tiny percentage of older airbags in hot environments wouldn't just fail to deploy properly, they'd propel shrapnel through the very people the devices were meant to protect. The probability of failure was still tiny, but the risk of that failure being catastrophic was suddenly through the roof, and out went the biggest safety recall in US history.
This issue right here is almost certain to be one of the reasons Apple uses sealed batteries in its portable devices, to assure safety of their customers through quality control and a very low rate of battery failures.
If users could easily replace batteries themselves, many would buy cheap aftermarket replacements, significantly increasing the likelihood of catastrophic failures. Apple would be mentioned first in all reports of those failures, and the aftermarket battery brand last, or in much less publicized corrections later, or mostly never at all.
Your reaction to Apple’s unremovable battery exploding is, “See how Apple prevents exploding batteries by making them unremovable?” What data are you using to conclude the rate would otherwise be higher?
My Series 2 stopped charging and started to overheat after nearly 2 years of use. I took it out of the charger and left it on the nightstand. In the morning the battery had swollen and cracked the screen open from one side.
I sent it back to Apple through my carrier and they replaced it for free. No questions asked.
Now 4 years later I am still on my series 2 and it is working fine. I might upgrade next year though.
“Battery blow out sends man to emergency room” makes it sound like it blew his had off. Hardly - from the article it sounds like he didn’t even need. Band-Aid.
All of Samsungs Galaxy phone batteries expand after or around two years. This is a rare occurrence with Apple but not surprising and nowhere near SamsungGalaxy phones. If you don’t believe me just type into YouTube Samsung Galaxy battery expansion
Same thing with the Sony batteries in non Sony lap tops.
Pretty sure investigation will find this to be fake
Why? You are projecting your love for the Apple brand as bias.
This is why these cases should be investigated by a designated authority without an interest in Apple (or any comparable organization, such as Samsung, Tesla, et cetera)
This one definitely seems to me like this guy is looking for a pay day from Apple. Very skeptical and would not be the least surprised to find out it was staged.
I have owned one of every generation of Apple Watch except one and have never seen this. The older watches have often been given to friends and family that did not have one and all have been well behaved.
Not sure if they are adaptable to smaller devices but newer designs of battery (LFP) are pushing out the Lithium Ion battery in the Solar Generator, BEV and other markets because they have better life and tend to be safer.
Your experience is the norm. The internet amplifies the exception and raises the exception to the norm. Then there are those as quick to excuse as those who are quick to condemn. That’s our culture these days. Look at the stories about Teslas catching fire and the knee-jerk reactions to those stories.
The odds of 2 apple products exploding for 1 person seems highly unlikely. Would be really interested to see if he was using 3rd party chargers.
I only see one Apple product with a faulty battery mentioned per owner. Also, how would a 3rd-party inductive Watch charger result in a faulty battery? I'm not saying it can't happen, but I'd expect the charging pad to overheat long before the Watch if there was an issue.
Pretty sure investigation will find this to be fake
Why assume they are lying?
Assuming a 3rd party charger is a problem is standard operating procedure for fanbois, because of course Apple can do nothing wrong, Apple is always perfect.
Same with the claims that someone who had an Apple device fail is lying.
It's disgusting to see people assume that ANY for-profit corporation is perfect, or even good.
Pretty sure investigation will find this to be fake
Why? You are projecting your love for the Apple brand as bias.
This is why these cases should be investigated by a designated authority without an interest in Apple (or any comparable organization, such as Samsung, Tesla, et cetera)
Agree but a few batteries catching fire among the millions in service does not a design or manufacturing flaw make. We’ve known for decades now about the problems with Lithium based batteries.
Comments
The older watches have often been given to friends and family that did not have one and all have been well behaved.
Not sure if they are adaptable to smaller devices but newer designs of battery (LFP) are pushing out the Lithium Ion battery in the Solar Generator, BEV and other markets because they have better life and tend to be safer.
So now I just charge everything in the living room.
To be honest it sounds like he was more or less uninjured. These days almost everyone goes to the emergency room to get checked out.
As far as LFP, I they still lag a bit in energy density vs lithium ion, which is important in small form factor devices. Hopefully either a manufacturable solid state battery will be produced (relatively)soon, or the recent Lithium Sulphur advancements will lead to a manufacturable battery. Either way, I am not sure how many people are willing to sacrifice 15-20% battery life for a slightly safer phone.
The high-risk part is the scenario described above. When they go bad, they go really bad. You could be permanently disfigured. Your house could burn down. An airplane could burn and go down. That's the high-risk part.
So if the batteries in iPhones have a, say, 0.0001% failure rate, that's a really low probability - the proverbial one-in-a-million. That also means that if 2.2 billion iPhones have been sold, 2,200 of them had bad batteries in them. Likely some significant percentage of those were used and thrown out or recycled before the battery had a chance to catch fire, but a non-zero number of them became incendiary devices while in the possession of their owner.
So how do you deal with that? To the individual consumer, you have a one-in-a-million chance that your iPhone is a time-bomb. (Remember, this is just a speculative number.) Your chances are probably more favorable than that, though, because you still might be done with it before a bad one ever goes south. This is still way less likely than your chances of being struck by lightning during your lifetime (1:15,300), so you're probably good. To Apple, the odds are so low, the cost of settling out for the tiny few is a reserve line on the company ledger. For the airlines, even with everyone bringing phones, watches computers and other devices with batteries, the chances of one taking down a plane is non-zero but probably much less likely than any number of other risks, like Canada geese getting sucked into a jet engine.
If the odds become more likely for a failure or the nature of the failure becomes more significant, than the calculation changes. The Takata airbag incident is a good example of that. When originally manufactured, the actuaries likely considered failures that involved airbags not activating or not inflating as sufficiently as they aged. Then they learned that a tiny percentage of older airbags in hot environments wouldn't just fail to deploy properly, they'd propel shrapnel through the very people the devices were meant to protect. The probability of failure was still tiny, but the risk of that failure being catastrophic was suddenly through the roof, and out went the biggest safety recall in US history.
I sent it back to Apple through my carrier and they replaced it for free. No questions asked.
Now 4 years later I am still on my series 2 and it is working fine. I might upgrade next year though.
Same thing with the Sony batteries in non Sony lap tops.
Apple watch battery calls it a day.
Genius 101, folks.