Yeah, and when it does, the manufacturer of that lithium bomb should pay for it.
And not just to compensate the victim, but to make the cost of negligent manufacture higher than the savings it brings to the company in engineering, QA, and production.
Numbers are not an excuse. There is over a billion cars in the world, most filled with highly flammable gasoline that actually burns inside them. Yet none are spontaneously exploding.
Self-immolating headphones - small speakers that you put on your head, mind you - are an egregious abuse of safety, public trust, and all reason. By an ostensibly "luxury" brand, no less.
There is no "but" about it. If they can't make safe headphones, they should not make headphones period.
OP, please report them to CPSC here: https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting
They absolutely are. 170,000 a year in the US alone. Some are even due to known design faults. A few years ago Ford recalled almost a million pickups due to a fire risk, and then recalled half of them again because the first fix caused another fire risk.
The probability of injury or death from a vehicle fire is probably much higher than the risk of injury from wireless headphones.
https://www.consumernotice.org/personal-injury/vehicle-safet...
What's your point? Mine was that Bose should do the same thing with their headphones, and they won't do it out of their own accord.
Also consider that there are billions of porcelain dishes made in the world, and somehow, they don't self-explode. If headphones are different in that regard, they should be, at the very least, clearly labeled as such - which is not the case.
Nothing is perfectly safe, that is how lithium batteries fail. You should know so you can properly deal with problems.
There is an annoying trend among people that expect everything to be perfectly safe. It seems to be a symptom of an overly sheltered existence.
Yeah, how overly sheltered to not expect your headphones to not catch on fire and kill you. It's a symptom of not believing when someone pisses in our eyes and tells us it's raining. Especially when it's happening on our own dime.
>Nothing is perfectly safe, that is how lithium batteries fail.
Then lithium batteries should be banned from headphones.
>You should know so you can properly deal with problems.
Good point! And where would the customer learn about this? From HackerNews?
Last time I checked, Bose devices didn't come with a self-combustion warning.
And until they do, my point applies.
Bose aren't luxury: they're premium mediocre. They're expensive - overpriced in fact - but have a supremely competent marketing team who are probably responsible for mopping up a good portion of that premium.
That doesn't make this incident any better or more excusable but it does go some way to explaining why it happened: the product is poor quality and cheaply engineered.
You get what you pay for, and with Bose you are paying to be hoodwinked by flashy marketing and "brand equity".
I'll probably swap to Sony next, but when I bought them there wasn't really a viable competitor.
Thanks, "premium" (also in scare quotes) is the word I was looking for.
Take into account the probability of a costly failure, and increase the price to account for it. And compensate victims to a certain extent, but quietly. I suppose they would fight any publicity of such incidents, since that would have a huge impact on sales, I have read a few such stories, and usually they disappear from the news pretty soon, likely because the victim agreed to be quietly compensated. I could be wrong.
Yes they do, and this is why we have CPSC and lawsuits: to increase the cost of failure to the point where it's not a wise business decision to allow one to happen.
Nothing is 100% fool-proof, but the difference between 99.9% safe and 99.99% safe is 10x decrease in incidents.
Yes, the OP prefaced with a number of common reasons this might happen that do not apply in his case, but that does not mean the root cause is faulty manufacture.
Hell, it's possible that a high-energy particle from space hit the battery in his headphones in just the right spot and that's why it exploded. Would you hold Bose responsible in that case?
Yes, and it's not my business to find out. It's the job of CPSC and investigators to find the reasons. Which is why I insisted the OP should file a report.
And as for establishing certainty, I'm not a judge or a jury, whose job it is to do so. Which is why I suggested the OP should take it to court.
>Hell, it's possible that a high-energy particle from space hit the battery in his headphones in just the right spot and that's why it exploded. Would you hold Bose responsible in that case?
I can't hold Bose responsible, the courts and CPSC can. Since it's also possible that OP was, you know, correct in his assessment, this case should get their attention.
The cosmic particle idea isn't completely outlandish, but it's impossible to prove, and it's statistically far more likely that it was a human failure. Given the rarity of spontaneously exploding batteries, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the particles are responsible for less than 1 in a million incidents, so yeah, the company should be liable. That's the cost of business, and on a humanistic note, making things better for the guy would just be the good thing to do.
Unless the device was mishandled in some unusual way, the manufacturer should bear this burden because they are/were in the best position to implement mechanisms to avoid the harm, from improved QA to a better design and, ultimately, to rhe informed decision not to sell the device.
Thing is, small lithium bombs do less damage than large ones. Now Bose makes a point of advertising the long battery-life of these devices; 20 hours, they say.
Doesn't that mean that Bose is profiting from the long battery life, while failing to mention that their competitors sell cans with smaller ear-bombs in them?
Not anymore.
Well, at lease EVs are spontaneously catching fire.
What negligence?
I wrote this not to shame Bose. But to highlight the risk of personal wearables and lithium ion technologies.
Please, don't cut Bose any slack. They deserve to be shamed.
If someone were to make a self-exploding car, they'd be out of carmaking very fast. If Bose can't make headphones that don't self-ignite, they should not be making headphones.
Consider that Bose is breaking the law if they don't report this incident to CPSC[1].
And if you have a spare minute (which you seem to, given that you wrote the post and comment), please file a consumer safety report[2] and report the Bose QC-35 II headphones as unsafe product.
It is a simple form, and it is the way to make sure that this doesn't happen again to someone else. Aside from that, consider filing a lawsuit to get compensated for the damage to your physical health. Talk to a lawyer that can take your case pro-bono.
Thank you for the time you took to report this here, and I am very sorry that Bose screwed you over like that. Please let me know if I can help with the CPSC report to prevent them doing this to others.
[1]https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Recall-Guidance...
I fully agree with the rest of what you're saying, but that's simply not true.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-f...
https://www.inquirer.com/business/cars-battery-fires-fear-la...
I highly doubt that, but don't let the paranoia get to you and start thinking of all the bad things that could've happened, because they didn't. In fact, I'd say the fire retardants in the plastic did exactly what they were supposed to do, given that you only mentioned smoke and not actual flames.
- What happened: exactly what you said, you can replace this as 'item X with a lithium-ion battery'. This is an event that could happen to any lithium-ion device, is scary and is something that we should be aware of and is scary
- Bose's customer support is abysmal at handling it (I wonder how first-line support for other companies would be)
Thanks for sharing the post, I'm sorry it happened to you and I hope you burns recover very soon!!
Great point!
So what I'm hearing is that Bose should recall all wireless headphones they ever made, and continue selling their new products with appropriate warnings.
In fact, I think it will be a great improvement of their slogan:
BOSE. Better sound through research. Scary, and something you should be aware of is scary.
Until then, It's safe to assume that people think their products are safe, not scary, because that's how they market them as.
Do you know how any chemicals got on your arm? Was the smoke itself the likely chemical that your arm was exposed to? (Did it not affect your lungs and eyes?) Or did something drop/drip from the headphones on your body? Or is it that when you grabbed it while it was burning, some part of it that had burned also rubbed your arms? Did your ears feel chemically burnt the same way?
Also, "lipo" batteries are actually the least safe configurations for liion. LiFePo and LiTi are inherently safer, but liion pouch cells are probably the worst even amongst other batteries of the same chemistry. A regular 18650 is very hard to puncture or deform, does not swell and has built in vent ports on the top- a li-po usually doesn't. So they have very little structural integrity, can be easy to puncture (which sometimes lead to internal shorting), have a hard time venting gases when they overheat, and need to be kept compressed to avoid swelling.
The reason they are still used is because of the huge weight savings that comes with not having a heavy steel casing and because they are a lot more modular. That also means they can be made larger and push a much higher amperage. At the very high end you can go up to 200-300 amps per cell vs 30-35 for high current 18650s.
What are suggesting people do? Headphones only function while on your head.
Everyone here, maybe. Almost everyone I know of is certainly not aware of any dangers (or goes with the classic "it will certainly not happen to me, what are the chances of that?").
I still have to remind my relatives not to just throw a charging phone wherever it lands (like under the pillow). The risk of it going off may be small, but the cost would be very high.
No harm warning about these risks on the label, then?
Everyone is aware, so it surely won't hurt the bottom line.
It could be the former. But it could also be the latter, in which case the OP taking legal action might save a few other Bose users some pain and suffering. Which is partly why he should escalate this.
Imagine there are N = 3 safeguards in the product design (note: I have no idea how many there are in reality), and imagine 1 of them is defective across the whole line. That means the other 2 remaining ones would still prevent almost every incident, and you'd indeed need to be unlucky for all 3 to fail. When you observe the first failure, the only thing you can conclude is that, in your particular case, all the safeguards failed. You cannot conclude (with any useful degree of confidence) that there was no common defect across the entire product line, given there are 2 other safeguards to prevent disasters. To figure that out the only practical way (without risking more incidents) is to actually examine the product and the failure mode.
(Now, admittedly I'm oversimplifying a bit here, but the point stands. e.g. if there are 2 safeguards, each with an independent 1/10k chance of failure, and you get 2 failures within the first 20k items manufactured, then you know that's incredibly unlikely without a defect. But even this reasoning only works after the 2nd incident (not 1st), and it still requires you to know the characteristics of all the safeguards... which is not information consumers have immediately available, and neither of which is the case here AFAIK.)
The amount of chemical energy released by burning of the electrolyte, and graphite is many times higher than battery's stored electric energy.
Most of what burns in a lithium cell is electrolyte, and later graphite.
I have no idea how much heavy metals I've been exposed to by inhaling the toxic smoke. I don't know how much smoke my pregnant wife inhaled. I worry how much chemical residue is on my desk, floor, walls, how much is getting recycled by my HVAC system, how much exposure my pets had.
That sort of paranoia doesn't help. In fact it may cause psychosomatic symptoms (nocebo effect). You've probably inhaled far worse if you've ever been to a barbeque, gas station, or just took a walk in one of the more crowded areas of the city.
You're not wrong, but I don't think it's an unreasonable reaction when you've literally been diagnosed with chemical burns, especially when it was not initially obvious. If you read the post in full, this is separate from lipo fire event, he tried to retrieve the serial number and later after handling it noticed a worsening burning sensation on his hands and arms... that kind of separation in time from a silent exposure of something to horrible side effects really fuck with your mind.
LiPF6 is a contact irritant, PF5 it decomposes to is a gas, and also a respiratory irritant, and HF PH5 decomposes in the air is a dangerous poisonous acid.
This is what everybody visiting a lithium battery factory is told on safety orientation. In case there is fire in the factory, run, preferably until you are few blocks away.
If enough hot aqueous LF6 in solvent gets on the skin, you will get a chemical burn. In worst case, the same thing as HF poisoning will happen (it pulls electrolytes out of blood, and then death from heart failure.)
It's not even clear if the battery caught fire, or if something else shorted out.
We should stop nitpicking of which part of Bose QC-35 II headphones malfunctioned and caused the product to be deadly dangerous. Instead, we should focus on the following problems:
* How do we incentivize the manufactures to take safety of their products seriously?
* How do we make sure the manufacturers don't skirt the responsibility of selling unsafe products as safe ones?
One doesn't get enter the free market without agreeing to some rules first. The rules are what differentiates a market from a scam.
Actually delivering the product for which the money was paid is one such rule.
Clearly warning about lethal dangers of the stuff you try to sell is another.
Violations of either rule come with a cost - because these violations damage not only the customer, but the entire free market.
That's just dismissive attitude that accomplishes nothing and adds nothing to the discussion.
You do realize that there was a quite real chance of someone seeing the OP's autopsy here?
>That sort of paranoia doesn't help
I guess you don't.
I find it fascinating that we get people saying "both of these in this thread:
* The inherent explosive and deadly danger of lithium is well known, the OP should have expected it, and should not complain
* The danger of lithium batteries is overblown, the OP shouldn't complain
It's quite a mindfuck to argue with both simultaneously.
That's an overstatement. The batteries in this thing are the most dangerous part, and yet they are too small to explode with a force that could cause an immediate fatality, i.e neither the explosion itself nor the shrapnel it could generate from the casing or the other components in the headphone are powerful enough. The risk here is burns, and maybe toxic exposure. And while burns can be rather bad (especially since it's Lithium), of course, also depending on how much flammable "stuff" you have on your head (hair, hat, headscarf, etc), burns are not the same thing as death.
The risk of a fatality is extremely low. The risk of lasting scars and disfigurement, deafness (on the battery side at least) and even blindness has a somewhat higher chance.
Then again, just look at the picture in the article. You can see how little damage is there to the actual "fragile" head phones plastic casing. Mostly intact. It wasn't a major explosion, it wasn't a major fire, and there probably wasn't any shrapnel whatsoever.
>>That sort of paranoia doesn't help
>I guess you don't.
This was clearly referring to the "toxic fumes" bit. And it is a fair thing to say, in my humble opinion. The fumes from the battery and plastic certainly aren't great, but unless you deliberately stay there and huff them without opening a window, your exposure will be rather minute, especially considering how small this event had to be. Indeed, what you inhale at a barbeque or just from burning food, or staying at the outside of a gas station for too long will be worse.
The "chemical burns" claim in the article is just confusing to me. I'd get it if the claim was that only the hands had a burning sensation like that, but the arms too but nothing besides that? Such a thing is either caused by direct contact (so hands only) or from fumes/spraying (which would mean exposed areas like the face should be affected as well). The way the story represents it makes me think it might be a psychosomatic effect only, but not necessarily of course. There is a "sweet spot" where these things might have sprayed particles only in a very limited area where hands and arms were affected but other exposed skin was too far away, but that sounds unlikely to me at least...
Regardless, nobody should expect these things to blow up, and it's fair to complain when they do. If it was a singular/very rare incident, fine, really bad luck. If there are a number of reports like this, this could indicate a systemic engineering or manufacturing problem.
Calling things that spontaneously catch on fire while being worn on one's head a lethal danger is not an overstatement.
For the same reason that smoking in bed is not something you should do: and that's because having something burning in places where fire isn't expected leads to people dying in fires.
>This was clearly referring to the "toxic fumes" bit. And it is a fair thing to say, in my humble opinion.
There is nothing humble about confidently calling the OP's concerns "unhelpful paranoia", and discounting what his doctor said were chemical burns as "psychosomatic effects" based on an armchair analysis of the spray pattern which you haven't even seen.
>Regardless, nobody should expect these things to blow up, and it's fair to complain when they do
Thank you. I don't understand why half the comments here are arguing the opposite.
>If it was a singular/very rare incident, fine, really bad luck. If there are a number of reports like this, this could indicate a systemic engineering or manufacturing problem.
Which is exactly why I urged the OP to immediately report it to CPSC (as Bose is also obligated to do, by law, regardless of whether they can establish the veracity of the claim).
And since CPSC is not very reliable, only legal action might uncover such systemic engineering/manufacturing problem and force Bose to do something about it.
Sometimes I wear my headphones in bed (not this brand/model, but another wireless over-the-ear sort.) I'm reconsidering that now...
Nitpick: lithium and li-ion are two different battery types.
The former contains metallic lithium, the latter lithium salts.
What went aflame in this accident wasn't the metal, but the liquid electrolyte, which is flammable.
Not sure what your nitpick is about; address it to the people who argue either.
My point is that OP should file a CPSC report (which they did), and contact a lawyer (which, I hope, they would).
Luckily, it wasn't the latter.
>Whether or not the battery started it or something else did, it is clearly the defective Bose QC-35 headphones that provided the serious problem, so if you have them, the danger is there.
Which is something that they should put on the label.
It might already be there? Just that the warning is so standard and ubiquitous that it is universally ignored (lots of things contain lithium and have the potential to explode).
I prefer the version that takes an AAA battery. A bit safer, especially if you avoid using rechargeables.
edit: no idea if the internal thermistor can fail by any means and it could have messed up the charge/discharge logic
Here is one example caught on video:
I didn't hunt for very long, but a cursory search didn't turn up anything like this with these headphones or Bose for that matter. And while I don't trust corporations implicitly, I do draw distinctions between companies like Ford or Samsung that might wait until absolutely necessary to do a recall and a company like Bose that has always seemed to have a lot riding on their reputation with their target customers.
And given my interactions with other companies after product failures, I would be stoked to be offered the brand new flagship line (QC45) assuming I had no real injuries.
Then again, if I were of a litigious nature (and thought there was a potential payday) I might focus on how the trace amount of "heavy metal" smoke from LIon batteries that lingered after I threw the headphones outside might affect my pets, wife, unborn child and HVAC system instead of being reasonable.
1) Find a lawyer. I'd guess that personal injury lawyer is the right kind, and that you can easily find one who works on contingency.
2) File a complaint with the consumer product safety commission, and any other applicable government agencies. The lawyer may be able to help with this.
You deserve compensation for this, and I wish you all the best with extracting it. I hope you recover soon.
Also: Take photos and document everything. A massive number of photos, of the damage to your house and your body and anything else you can think of. This will help with the lawyer.
Not if there's a recall.
Which, by all means, should happen, and not just for that particular model.
The flip-side, that Lithium batteries should probably not be present in body worn gear is something that I would subscribe to but at the same time I'm aware of people wearing stuff like that by the 10's of millions in their ears and so far it seems to work well enough that the number of incidents is low and in most cases can be traced back to gross abuse of the devices.
Finally: charging Lithium Ion batteries of any kind is where the risk is, it's always a good idea to charge them in a spot where you can keep an eye on them, and to watch them closely just after you have charged them (especially to full capacity, which I would recommend against) for a little while after because that is when if things go wrong they will go wrong.
You believe that you “deserve” compensation, but at the same time you guys are all crazy on independence and don’t-tell-me-how-to-behave and whatever else. But as soon as a thing goes wrong you want money for it.
It’s like you don’t believe in the concept of an accident.
We, in the US, have to rely on lawsuits to impose a cost on companies for violating the rules of the market.
That's not to mention that we don't have public healthcare which will pay for medical expenses, like seeing a doctor from the chemical burns that you got while wearing Bose QC-35 II headphones as they exploded during normal operation.
It's just one of these weird quirks of The Land of The Free™, where if you want to get medical care for the bodily injury caused to you by a negligent corporation, you have to sue them.
I know it's difficult to understand to an Australian, but the lawsuit is what pays the medical bill.
That might be a fine attitude. Until you get terribly injured and now you seek tens of thousands of dollars from someone else.
Who do you think that this someone else is? Don’t you realise that it’s just all of the other Americans?
However, this also legitimizes dealing with the potential of human tragedy or injury as a mere financial risk. Companies are already terribly dehumanized, and I don't think this legitimization helps for this. At least with regulation there is a direct effort to prevent tragedy, and the framing is also closer to this objective. Of course, the goal for companies will still be "we have to adhere to the regulation", but at least the question "why does the regulation exist?" remains nearby. I think it's also the more democratic approach: rather than putting the incentive mechanism in the hands of a judge, democratically elected governments take direct measures to protect their citizens.
Also, note the stigma and shaming of "lawsuit-happy Americans" who are "entitled" and "sheltered", etc. - even in this forum, where people should know better!
So not only people don't understand that the lawsuits are a compliance enforcement mechanism, but they are actively preventing it from working by saying things like "nothing is perfectly safe, hurr durr".
Anyway. Thank you for putting it this succinctly; I wish your comment was at the top:
>There needs to be some incentive for companies to ensure the safety of their products or actions. In the US, this seems to be (punitive) damages, whereas in Europe it's more through stronger regulations. The nice thing about damages is that it's in terms of moeny, and since companies optimize for money, this does sorta make sense.
Do you believe that all Americans share these exact traits?
if you buy a product that comes with a pamphlet telling you how safe it is, you have to trust the manufacturer. you are also trusting that the product has passed all the necessary safety requirements. if that product is food or for children, that trust is even higher.
if an accident happens to you, you need to contact the right people so: 1. it does not happen to others 2. your damages, if possible, are covered.
that's how we make it safer for everybody.
I prefer that a decently regulated or public health insurance system covers costs instead of letting the risk to the consumer. The insurance can claim damages from the corporation if there is neglect.
Uhmm, no, at least not here in Germany. The amount on compensation is related to the severity of the injury. For things that heal you will get Schmerzensgeld ("pain" money), as well as compensation for things that broke (e.g. your car or bike in a traffic accident). If the injury takes a while to heal, in which time you're unable to work, you get compensated for that as well. If it's lasting damage, you will get disability money. If you need care/help (from grocery shopping and cooking, to full blown 24/7 nurse care) that is compensated as well, and may amount to tens of thousands of euros per month. If you're permanently unable to work you will get compensated for that in a "reasonable" way (you won't be poor), and the liable party will also have to pay your retirement insurance dues[0]. If you requires changes to your living situation[1], you will get "reasonably" compensated as well. And so on. Basically, every damage that can be monetarily valued or at least estimated will be "reasonably" compensated.
>In US you could sue for millions.
Where you're right is that you won't get rich from such a lawsuit. Regardless, the total amount in compensation you will receive over a life time could as well amount to millions as well. The amounts awarded in the US may seem large sometimes, until you realize that it's a one time thing, and the health and care costs over a lifetime you will incur may still not be covered by that lump sum.
The only thing here in Germany that isn't really direct compensation but "extra" money is the Schmerzensgeld, and that's usually a one time pay of a couple hundred bucks for light injuries up to low six figures for major injuries.
And it might be harder to "fully" win such a lawsuit too, as in Germany you don't have jury trials[2].
[0] Retirement insurance dues may have to be paid even if the injured party was not working yet, e.g. when the person was still in school.
[1] E.g. you need a wheel chair ramp, or move to a wheel chair accessible place, or need to make changes to your bathroom to get in and out of the shower/bathtub. In some cases, defendants were ordered to pay the difference for getting a larger house so family providing some care could move in.
[2] Tho, there are Schöffengerichte, with "regular" people sitting on a panel with a judge, usually 2 regular people and 1 judge in the lower courts. While the judge can be outvoted in theory by the 2 other, the judge is part of the deliberations and therefore has great input into the decision finding.
Trust me. I have recent first-hand experience in the healthcare of Australia, and my sister has recent first-hand experience with the (lack of) healthcare in USA. I'm nearly 100% recovered, only because of the recency of injury, while she nearly died for the incredibly rare condition of giving birth, through a surgeon causing internal bleeding during a c-section. And no-one noticing she was dying for hours.
What a great way to describe libertarianism in a single sentence. The vast majority of their talking points and ideas fall apart quite easily under any sort of scrutiny or contact with the real world.
- Bose is an evil megacorp who recklessly endangered its customers by selling dangerous and poorly designed products.
- Accidents happen and when a device explodes on your head you should accept it as a fact of life and move on. The chemical burns are nothing and OP is a pussy.
I think the reality may be different. My take on it is that Li batteries possess inherent dangers and it is incumbent upon manufacturers to take reasonable steps to mitigate the dangers while informing their consumers of the risk. Unfortunately, even when presented with the risks, most folks are unable to comprehend the probabilities and consequences and will nearly always choose convenience, features and value over the avoidance of danger. It seems we, as a society(not as individuals, as some will surely object) have chosen Li technology and deemed it safe enough to deploy ubiquitously.
I hope a review of this incident will shed light on the safety practices followed by Bose and will inform future engineers of unforeseen risks, giving us all safer, convenient devices.
Overall I find the discussions in this thread unbecoming of the types of folks I thought frequented HN. I hope we can all strive to elevate the dialogue and treat each other with a moderate amount of respect.
Yes, and most are entirely unaware of the dangers and best practices. I can see what may have happened is that even if the product was new, it may have sat in inventory long enough for the Li-ion cell to have self-discharged below 2.5V and remained below that critical threshold until purchased. Dendrites began forming immediately upon submitting to charge cycles. The dendrites shorted the cell causing thermal runaway. It could have burned the house down.
And yet, the calls to add labels that would allow consumers to tell which products contain lithium batteries at a glance have been derided here.
To add to this, my pair of wireless headphones can be also used with a 3.5mm cable, and I often do that, as it allows instant switching between devices. You can't tell they have wireless capability (or lithium batteries in them) just by looking.
According to comments, I'm the sole person on this planet who does read the instruction manual. And yet I am learning about thermal runaway in possibility in otherwise non-defective equipment from the HackerNews (thank you for explaining!).
Don't we want things to change for the better?
The best practices are pretty simple. To get the most life out of a cell (and this is true of Li-ion, NiMH, NiCad, whatever), rest the cells for at least an hour after use and before charging, and after charging and before use. Adopting these rest cycles allows the cell to maintain its capacity. Abusing a cell by never resting it between use or charging will decimate its charge capacity and reduce the amount of amps it can provide compared to when it was new and unused.
Do not store Li-ion cells long term at full capacity, but instead at 3.7V. This is actually controversial, but allegedly (though I do not know why) storing at full capacity reduces the life of a cell.
And of course don't drop your cells, as it can and will cause internal damage, reducing the life of the cell.
Similar in regards to informed consent: if you're even told what the potential consequences are, a layperson may not, likely doesn't, have similar frame of reference to understand what say a potential "side" effect of a medication could be.
So how do we determine what's acceptable? What level of actually understanding, and perhaps confirmation of understanding, should be required? Unfortunately it's likely mostly those who were harmed that try to speak out, but as in the vast majority of cases they are the minority and their concerns drowned out - arguably only monetary losses via lawsuits being the impetus for organizations to change, however so long as it's extremely profitable with no jail time for executives who should be accounting and therefore be accountable.
Third camp reporting! Here's my take (as a Bose product user):
1) Bose QC-35 II headphones are a hazardous product that, in at least one instance, has spontaneously burst into flames and caused chemical burns while being operated according to the manual
2) This product does not come with appropriate warnings[0] that this is a possibility, while, according to comments here, hazards of the battery used are common knowledge among engineers
3) The product's manual instructs the user to take the headphones off if they experience a "warming sensation"[0], indicating that the engineers were aware of the risks, but neither the risks nor mitigation were not described in the instruction manual (compare this with the labels on something as common as epoxy resin)
4) The OP should report this incident to CPSC (as they did[1]!), since this is the body responsible for keeping track of such incidents and that will be able to act upon them if there's a pattern of them happening
5) The medical injuries sustained by the OP are unacceptable; and at the very least, Bose should pay for the medical treatment and resulting productivity loss, as they occurred at no fault of the OP, who trusted Bose's device to be safe to use as described by Bose. (Reminder for our friends outside the US: we don't have universal healthcare)
6) There needs to be some incentive for companies to ensure the safety of their products or actions. In the US, this seems to be (punitive) damages, whereas in Europe it's more through stronger regulations.[2]
7) If the OPs report is true, I also hope they sue Bose. It is important for all of us - people who use Bose products, their roommates etc - that they thoroughly check this incident and make sure it never happens again. They will not do it unless it costs them money and bad publicity.[3]
Please let me know what's so radical about it, as many people seem to get angry about it.
And fully with you regarding treating others with respect (particularly, it's sad to see the OP being called "hypochondriac" and their concerns dismissed as "paranoid"). It is, as you said, unbecoming.
____________________
Disclaimer: I love my Bose SoundLink Mini II speaker. I bought it, for myself, with my money, which was fully worth it. IMO, it sounds better than any other speaker of the same size that I tried.
That doesn't excuse this situation happening, nor how Bose handled it so far.
[0] Bose QC-35 II manual: https://assets.bose.com/content/dam/Bose_DAM/Web/consumer_el...
[1] As per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29602614
[2] In the words of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29603800
[3] In the words of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29603321
Consumers in general are unaware of the hazards and unwilling to learn, mostly because it's very rare for anything particularly bad to happen. You can find thousands of examples of dangerous situations here: https://www.reddit.com/r/spicypillows/
edit: as a tangential story, I once ended up at a battle robot live stream. Turns out lithium battery fires are a normalized part of that, with arenas filling with toxic smoke and volunteers with no PPE collecting actively combusting robots while breathing billowing clouds of thick smoke. It happened to have some affiliated moderators; after pointing out this was stupid and very, very unhealthy, they basically told me to shut up and donate PPE if I didn't like it. I thought it was a fascinating example of the disconnect between OSHA-regulated industry and end consumers.
These modern hieroglyphics a)mean little to nothing, and b)stop existing once you remove a product from its packaging. That's not enough.
>Consumers in general are unaware of the hazards and unwilling to learn
Unwilling? Well, perhaps they would be more willing if the instructions that came with the product contained the information that you'd want them to learn.
According to this thread, this includes:
* Awareness of Li-Ion cell chemistry, normal operating voltage ranges, critical low voltage after which the battery should not be charged, and the possibility of formation of dendrites and runaway thermal reaction;
* Awareness that the said runaway reaction, in practical terms, means that charging a device with a "dead" battery can result in spontaneous combustion;
* Awareness that, given lack of access to internal batteries, and any information about its state, we solely rely on regulating circuitry to prevent that from happening, and that this circuitry might be faulty, resulting in the possibility of spontaneous combustion under normal use conditions;
* Awareness how to handle a Li-Ion battery that caught on fire, and how to dispose of a device with a burning battery safely, especially when it's operated in highly flammable environments (e.g. using headphones in a bedroom/in a dry field outdoors/at a gas station);
* Awareness that the battery catching on fire may result not only thermal, but also chemical burns if it is not disposed of in a safe manner while it's on fire - in addition to toxic fumes;
* Awareness of how to deal with thermal and chemical burns should they happen (e.g. for chemical burns, rinse with cold water for half an hour), as well as consequences of inhaling the fumes;
According to commenters here, all of the above is "common knowledge", "high school chemistry", "middle school knowledge", "easy best practices", etc. - which, at the same time, are virtually unknown by the general public (due to unwillingness to learn, no less).
Also, the manufacturers are under no moral or legal obligation to inform their users of these hazards and procedures, and this information isn't (and shouldn't) be included in product manuals.
Holy self-contradictory Jesus this thread has been quite a read.
should it? especially when the risk is so low and warnings like "contents may be hot" on coffee cups or " This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm" are widely derided?
Yes, it should, because people expect wireless headphones to be as safe as wired ones, which have exactly 0% (zero, zlich, nada) chance of spontaneously catching on fire.
Wired headphones are still widely used, made, and sold. This would allow the consumers to make an informed choice, and will give the manufactures of safe devices (wired or wireless) the deserved edge in the market.
Also, consider the comments just from this thread about the risks:
>In the end you're carrying a high energy density power source on your head that would love to just catch fire. Don't they teach kids anything in chemistry these days?
>I mean I’m glad it didn’t happen to me, but a billion people are carrying around billions of Lithium-ion batteries. Those batteries sometimes catch fire because Lithium is highly flammable. It’s gonna happen.
>Nothing is perfectly safe, that is how lithium batteries fail. You should know so you can properly deal with problems.
>Well, at lease EVs are spontaneously catching fire.
>Everyone is aware of the risks, there were a bunch of stories about airplane cell phone fires a few years ago.
>lithium battery fires are really nasty, and that's why he got a chemical burn. LiPF6 is a contact irritant, PF5 it decomposes to is a gas, and also a respiratory irritant, and HF PH5 decomposes in the air is a dangerous poisonous acid. This is what everybody visiting a lithium battery factory is told on safety orientation. In case there is fire in the factory, run, preferably until you are few blocks away.
So, paradoxically, the risks are both negligible and inevitable, something that every consumer should be prepared for because "everyone knows" batteries explode, but no manufacturer should warn about, mitigate, or account for in the design because who'd buy their product then?
I hope you agree that the above is self-contradictory.
Now, ultimately, warnings are not a panacea, but they do work. At the very least, having their product labeled as "unsafe to use in bed" would make the manufacturers invest in research that would result in a better product that doesn't merit such a label.
The problem with those warnings is not their existence, but the fact they are unspecific. If the ingredients on food containers just said "This contains an allergen", people would ignore them too. The way to make the California warnings useful would be to list which specific chemical is the problem, so that it is actionable.
Similarly, for the headphones case, listing the specific problem allows the user to take into account their specific situation (climate, usage pattern etc.) to decide if it's applicable to them. Obviously if the warning just said "this is hazardous", it's worse than useless.
How many people here are "engineers" (Licenced P.E.s with EE degreee)? Most people here string npm modules together and aren't qualified to assess LiON battery risks -- myself included.
EEs that work on products fall under the "industrial exemption" - their employers are responsible for having appropriate processes in place for product safety.
The point of the remark you are quoting was that it's unreasonable to think that the engineers that designed that product were unaware of dangers associated with this kind of battery.
I.e. if people here know about these dangers, so does Bose.
I think the money I paid for my Bose SoundLink Mini II is very much well-spent, and I don't know of any other speaker of the same size which can beat it in quality of sound and battery life.
At the same time, some commenters here believe that wanting to hold Bose accountable means I have a bone to pick with them.
I feel like the problem here is that people think that the brands they use represent their personality. I love the product from Bose that I own, and that's why I want to see them held accountable for the self-combusting one.
That's to ensure I can enjoy using their products going forward, and recommend them without being worried about whether their newest gadget may set my friend's house on fire.
If you model the noise canceling as a superposition of the input signal with the generated signal, where the generated signal is specifically designed to account for the processing delay and hence only targets lower-frequency noise, then wouldn't 2 things be true:
1) Any residual from imperfect cancellation would only be at the lower frequencies (because the generated signal itself contains no high frequencies, and we a linear superposition). Of course, the original high frequency content from the input that was never cancelled will still be present but this isn't any worse.
2) Even in the worst case that we completely mispredict, we will only double the sound intensity which is a 3db increase. This seems relatively safe?
That said, while it seems physically safe it's possible that ANC still wreaks havoc with the brain's audio processing. Maybe the brain relies on the existence of the low frequency content as a sort of gain control mechanism or something (there are anecdotal reports by some users of increased tinnitus with long-term ANC use, but it's also possible that it only increased their awareness of it). I've also read that some people are sensitive to this lack of low-frequency noise since the brain interprets it as a pressure differential.
If you take a sinusoids, invert it, slightly offset it, and combine them. You get a smaller signal always, unless you’re delay is larger then 90°.
I would recommend playing with some audio signals in an online simulator and see what you get, you realise that your 2D intuition does not apply well to analogue 1D signals. The strict digital nature of image processing done on a computer creates the possibility of results not easily possible when working on analogue signal. After all you can one pixel on a screen at max brightness, and it’s neighbour completely of, but it’s impossible to recreate a similar hard edge with an audio signal because it would require the speaker to be capable of infinite speed and acceleration.
> What you are left with is the edges (high frequency)
So you subtract a slightly phase shifted high frequency signal, you're left with a high frequency signal that may be amplified at the edges depending on your phase shift. Nothing surprising here?
The question is can you create a high frequency residual by subtracting a lowpass filtered (gaussian blur?) image? I don't think so. You're just left with whatever high frequencies you had but you aren't creating any new ones.
https://www.howtogeek.com/423960/why-do-noise-canceling-head...
There are lots of other sources of pain, fatigue and discomfort, though. Essentially, since the noise cancellation isn't perfect, you can hear some subset of the sound, varying across the frequency spectrum. This can cause a feeling of being underwater, of having blocked ears or simply of having to listen more closely, all of which might cause ongoing muscle tension of different muscles.
On the good news side, a lot of people who find discomfort with one brand of noise-cancelling can find other brands fine, so it might be worth trying some other brands. (For Bose, the main similar-quality competitor is Sony.)
Finally, in the simplistic model, there does not have to be a delay. Sound only travels at 340 metres per second, so for every 10mm distance between the microphone and the emitter, one can have around 34 microseconds of processing time.
I've got a sony wh-1000xm2, some inear Jabra and the Bose 700, which came with my Pixel 6 purchase the other day.
It really is something the potential buyer should check out themselves in a store before buying, because they're really variable in quality.
According to mkbhd the Sony one's are the best at it, but they have very strong white noise background at least with my older model.
I actually had the same issue with that pressure on my ears, though it slowly went away and haven't noticed any displeasure in a long time now.
But the noise cancellation is subtly audible. I'm not a sound engineer, but it feels a little bit like sound compression being too high.
However, my Sennheiser over-ear ANC headphones (MB660) have a much better ANC effect compared to the AirPods but the strain on the ears is a lot less intense. I would expect, that the Bose QC-35 II are much closer to the MB660 than to the AirPods Pro.
In a public discussion about whether it is appropriate to continue using Li-ion powered portable electronics, it seems natural that it's an entirely different discussion.
But also on the subject of risk vs reward, I think its pretty clear that cars cause more deaths than terrorism, if you want a clearer example of society deciding risks are worth the rewards
You get out of the car.
They don’t tend to explode like in an action movie.
Like any of dozens and dozens of things, they might burn down your house albeit quite rarely.
People really need to start accepting that risk is never zero.
Not always.
Electric cars are also quite dangerous for firefighters to put the flames out (you can't use water for instance and it's even more dangerous in rain) and since they are relatively new not all firefighters know how to extinct them properly.
I worry about this too. Cripes!
I don't dispute the possibility of the burns, but I stopped reading here. The "echo" effect is caused from somebody using speakers instead of headphones as an output device during a call. Sometimes, having a good microphone or good software noise removal can mitigate this, but to solve the problem at the root, simply stop using the laptop speakers as the sound output device during meetings. You could use a pair of $20 earbuds to solve this. By the way, the echo isn't caused from them speaking, and if it is, the configuration fault lies with someone other than the speaker.
Also interesting that the author uses "portable" as the other selling point, as if the alternative were to use a boom mic.
If the author is thinking about suing, they'd be wiser to not eviscerate their own credibility as an engineer, in comments that could become designated as evidentiary material in such a case. It may not change the fact that they were burned and deserve compensation, but it may make it harder to win in court. The optimal thing to do is to say nothing public at all until clearing it with legal counsel. I'm not a lawyer though.
If you don't, why bring it up? Nothing in your comment is about burns.
The "I'm not saying <something>, but...." is just a roundabout way to imply <something> without being held accountable for saying it directly. Please avoid this in your communication.
> I stopped reading here. The "echo" effect is caused from somebody using speakers instead of headphones
...which is exactly why the OP suggested they use headphones.
The echo appears when they start speaking while other people speak. It doesn't happen when they're on mute. And echo cancellation does a great job if only one person speaks at a time.
But echo cancellation is complicated when a person's speech is mixed with the speakers output. Hence, if you have a bad setup, there's going to be an echo when you speak.
>You could use a pair of $20 earbuds to solve this.
Yes. And? We can't recommend things we like because there are cheaper things?
>they'd be wiser to not eviscerate their own credibility as an engineer
The author is not writing as an engineer. Also, given the above, I hope you heed your own advice.
When people get to this point in a back-and-forth, it's a clear indication that the thread should have stopped a while ago. Believe me, I realize it's not easy to pull away, but it's necessary.
Saying that the OP has, quote, "eviscerated their own credibility as an engineer" without adding anything of value to the discussion (aside, possibly, from eviscerating your own credibility as an engineer; not that it matters) was uncalled for.
I posted another comment about this recently.
It appears that NYC is having about 1 e-bike fire per year, per 100K persons. (see below)
It also appears the NYC is having about the same rate of e-bike fire injuries: About 1 injury per 100K persons, per year.
I actually bought a nice e-bike and returned it, cause I didn't want to lose sleep over the possibility of an e-bike fire. The estimated probability is very low, granted.
References: https://www.consumerreports.org/electric-bikes/how-to-preven... "E-bike ownership has skyrocketed in New York since the pandemic began, and with it, e-bike fires, according to the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). There have been 75 e-bike fires so far this year, which is on pace to double last year’s total, officials said. The fires have caused 72 injuries and three deaths."
It is the most common type of batteries on the planet, which has been used for decades. What is your estimate on when the risk will be well understood, if ever?
Asbestos for example was used for quite a few years and seen as a safe and cheap building material. Then it turned out that it gives people cancer. A similar thing happened with lead, although some people knew how dangerous it is but kept quiet about it for profit.
I took the time to run ethernet cable to my home office because while the wifi works well 99% of the time, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm in a work meeting and it cuts off or starts becoming choppy.
Wireless headphones introduce multiple new modes of failure, like connection issues, and running out of battery. If you want reliability, it's good to stick with safe, reliable technologies, and eliminate potential modes of failure.
Sure, you could also use a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse while you're at it, but then, between your wifi, your wireless headset, your wireless keyboard and your wireless mouse, the odds of a connection or battery failure happening when you need your computer to work is quite a bit higher.
One of my colleagues uses a wireless headset and it's happened at least 10 times during meetings that people tell him "sorry, we can't hear you, could you check your audio". Don't be that guy, use wired headphones ;)
Just to be clear, "noise cancellation and so on" doesn't in any way require the headphones to be wireless.
I think many people would appreciate it if features, which are typically found in wireless headphones, were available in wired headphones too (which have some other benefits, like lower weight, no charging...). There's a reason many of us prefer wired mice and keyboards, even though the wireless alternatives are pretty decent nowadays.
It solves disposal, storage and transport problems and it decouples device lifetime from battery lifetime.
Alkalines are nice but produce a lot of waste. Lots of things don't work quite right with rechargeable AAs but I agree, the things that do are perfect also.
NiMH is rechargeable and seems better than alkaline in almost every way. It also doesn't spontaneously combust. Energy density is not quite as good as lithium ion but for something like headphones it is fine.
One Chinese company actually invented a flexible and solid battery that can even be cut without a risk of explosion but it doesn't scale to bigger capacities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJXRyWQgOY4
Which is why some of us here are urging the OP to sue: to make sure the safety innovation has demand in the free market.
Nope, we aren't.
We, as the consumer, say this on HN:
>There is an inherent risk of loss of life whatever you do. We as a society just agreed that there's an acceptable level of it. Lithium-Ion batteries are on the higher level of it but their usefulness outweights it completely. To answer your question, there's a lot of things that have much higher chance of happening on an airplane e.g. a bird flying into the engine or a terrorist attack.
Why push for innovation when you can just accept the inherent risk of death?
> I used the stock USB charger connected to a Macbook Pro.
The headphones were connected to charger or MBP? (MBP uses USB-C, QC35ii uses micro-USB, are there cables like this?)
Yes and they’re not super rare
On the other hand, it doesn't seem that the amount from rechargeable lion is anywhere near as much, or we'd be hearing a lot more about everyone who got lung damage from all the "stupid things people do with lithium batteries" videos on YouTube...
Every wireless product you buy is almost guaranteed to have this same "flaw". If the battery gets damaged, it can ruin your product and maybe even hurt you. Why did you switch from the wired version? You never explained.
I got into Remote Control quadcopters this last year and some of the bare unprotected lipo batteries I have bought as part of this hobby could probably burn my whole house down. You just have to be careful and follow the guidelines given when buying these sorts of products.
In any case, it's reasonable for someone to be bothered at being burned by their headphones and certainly not something to be expected, as you imply.
Agreed that every LiIon powered product carries these risks, but even when you are very careful material defects can and do occasionally crop up. But here there is - for now - not enough information to determine whether this was a a charger issue, a manufacturing defect, a case of abuse or even a combination of some of these.
But this story, together with my own 2 warranty repairs, confirms my suspicion that Bose has serious QC issues.
Personally I find OP’s experience helpful - it never occurred to me that a failure like this might happen, and it causes me to question if I want to keep using my wireless headphones.
I feel bad for OP, but this is just a "luck-of-the-draw" thing. Trying to make it into anything else is disingenuous at best. I don't think these "negative" comments are as negative as you are reading them, I think they're being realistic.
I also have this exact model, bought them in 2019 at an airport and right at the time when they were warning about a particular Samsung device bursting into flames before every flight. There must be hundreds of thousands of them in the wild. I won't charge mine when I'm not around anymore.
A cat chewed one of the cables, and I had to replace the ear cushions (for a few bucks from eBay) but they're otherwise going strong, despite a fairly tough life.
The company behind it offered to replace the product with whatever I wanted from their store as long as I signed a "I won't sue you" form and sent them the unit back for investigation. They said it was a manufacturing defect. I wasn't feeling like spending months or years in litigation, so I took the offer (no batteries this time) and moved on with my life. No regrets since.
The reality is that we're all surrounded by these ticking battery timebombs, and we're all at the mercy of manufacturing quality control and luck. Ever since that incident I never charge any new device unless I'm sitting next to it for a few hours, just to make sure nothing of the sort happens without my supervision. I realize it doesn't accomplish much, since these issues often happen hundreds of hours into the device's regular operation, but it gives me a false sense of safety.
A couple of questions for you:
- were the headphones recently dropped?
- otherwise damaged?
- what was the environment like at the time of charging (extreme temperature / humidity)?
- what exactly was the charging setup, I don't quite understand your description about the 'the stock USB charger connected to a Macbook Pro', do you mean you used the stock charging cable? Or that you used a Macbook Pro charger? Or something else?
- Was there anything that might have given an earlier warning? Such as: the last charge cycle not working well requiring a recharge much sooner than you expected it, a deep discharge or other anomaly?
- Was there any sound (not headphone sounds, but sounds of something popping or cracking) prior to the combustion?
- Do you know what kind of batteries are in the QC-35, are these Lithium Polymer or something else?
- Approximately how many charge/discharge cycles did your headphones have?
Thank you for answering these, if you can, it may help get a grip on how bad the risk is for other users of these devices and whether or not there are any special circumstances that may have caused this.
I have a long article about Lithium Ion battery safety in the works and this is a pretty heavy thing that happened here, it could have easily been a lot worse though, but to imagine what could have happened had you not been in the house or if you had responded even a little bit slower is horrifying, you were - in spite of the bad stuff - extremely lucky that this ended the way it did.
If I were in this guys shoes, I probably wouldn't even want a Bose aux cord.
Excellent customer relations by the way.
Off topic - Jorg Baller's comment on the blog post is confusing and seems rude.
To the OP I wish you a speedy recovery from your injuries and would encourage you to seek legal recourse so that bose is fully motivated to resolve this issue for you and other Bose customers.
That said, beyond 24 hours not sure how useful it would be.
Lithium Ion batteries don't have heavy metals in them, so there's no risk there.
Last time I heard they were buying from Goertec.
