

WakeMate Warns Users Of Major Safety Issue - wensing
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/31/wakemate-usb-fire

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invisible
"...isn’t specific about what the exact problem is..."

I would presume it saying "the power brick is defective" is a really, really
good specification about what the exact problem is with regard to a "safety
issue." TechCrunch also labels it as "USB Charger" (which makes me think of
just a regular USB cable) when in the email it says the "USB charger brick."
What I REALLY hate is that TC never, ever goes back and fixes grammatical
errors/typos/misleading statements when it screws up an article, it just adds
an "update" at the bottom of the article. Have they not heard of TL;DR?

At least the notice email was well written.

~~~
bmastenbrook
``I would presume it saying "the power brick is defective" is a really, really
good specification about what the exact problem is with regard to a "safety
issue."''

I'm suspicious of this explanation. The brick might be defective, but it's the
responsibility of the charger to shut down the charge cycle if there's
something wrong with the input. Most lithium-ion chargers include an on-die
thermistor for this reason. I wonder if the WakeMate folks found one that
didn't and also didn't populate an external thermistor to save space or cost.

~~~
shub
Sounds like someone wasn't practicing defensive electrical engineering (is
that a thing? I think it should be a thing).

------
coolswan
original discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2054847>

~~~
cma
_original_ discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2030226>

=/

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MichaelApproved
At what point does the wake mate management team get fired for all the screw
ups they've caused? It's amazing how many customer issues they've had
developing this product. Sure, the concept might be great but the team in
charge just seem to be in over their heads.

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jgalvez
The first thing I thought when I read the headline: zombies.

