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Galaxy Note7: What We Discovered
- richardboegli 10y agoSamsung Announces New and Enhanced Quality Assurance Measures to Improve Product Safety https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-announces-new-and-enhanced-quality-assurance-measures-to-improve-product-safety https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-announces-new-and-en... Also a YouTube video with findings and new Quality Assurance Measures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeKdcIOAEL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeKdcIOAEL8
- richardboegli 10y agoAnnouncement: https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announces-cause-of-galaxy-note7-incidents-in-press-conference https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announce...
- richardboegli 10y agoA few more sites: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-story/note7-press-conference-detail/ http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-story/note7-pres... http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-story/note7-press-conference-detail2/ http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-story/note7-pres...
- richardboegli 10y agoTL;DR Both batteries had a design / fabrication error which caused issues
- canistr 10y agoIt's also important to mention that there were two different batteries (based on 1st and 2nd recalls) with two different flaws.
- libeclipse 10y agoeach with two different flaws
- martin-adams 10y agoMakes you wonder if this is limited to the Galaxy Note 7 if there is a design fault in making the battery safe.
- chinhodado 10y agoProps to Samsung. They reacted fast to the incidents, quickly announced recalls and worked hard to convince people to return their devices, launched in depth investigation, identified the problem and made changes to their processes. If the result of the investigation is correct then they have different flaws in both the original and new batteries, which is quite unfortunate. The fiasco costed them something like $17B so they can't afford to have it happen again.
- MikusR 10y agoUnfortunately the fast return after first recall seems to be the cause of the second recall.
- kevinchen 10y ago????? I'm having trouble thinking of a more poorly organized recall in consumer electronics: - Samsung initially refused to work with US regulators (CPSC) to coordinate a recall. - They didn't communicate to customers the danger of the situation until after people got burned and there was widespread media coverage. - They didn't work with carriers to allow returns in stores. People who bought their Note 7's through their carriers weren't clear on how they could return the phone. In some cases, the store employees even told customers that they couldn't swap the device. - For those who managed to swap their phones, the replacement had the same issue. They had a defective battery because they rushed Note 7 develpment -- you'd think they would have learned not to rush the recall...
- duskwuff 10y agoThe handling of the recall outside the US was even worse. For instance, after reports of exploding phones started circulating in China, Samsung claimed that the phones distributed in that country were not defective, and insinulated that the owners had deliberately mistreated the devices: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/09/20/samsungs-attempt-to-douse-china-firestorm-has-consumers-steaming/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/09/20/samsungs-attem...
- makomk 10y ago
- asafira 10y agoI'm glad my question was finally answered! During the paranoia in September/October, I remember reading everything and wondering why nothing seemed to explain why the issue happened in the first place. Note7's aren't exactly the only tech with batteries... Otherwise, sorry for being negative, but this doesn't seem like a very complicated reason for the batteries to have been defective, right? Why didn't they just release this a couple of weeks after the incidents started happening? (Did they want to confirm with a large number of the recalled ones they got back you think?)
- vacri 10y agoNot all units had these flaws.
- chinhodado 10y agoThere were about 100 reported incidents out of something like 2.5 million Note 7 manufactured, so whatever the defect is it is not a common one and thus hard to find and confirmed. Not to mention most of the phones with problem burned so you can't "debug" them directly.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoI realize they had to root cause this problem but it was interesting to see and I wonder if they fired the Battery manufacturer. The other thing I find interesting is that given the root cause they could essentially do 100% battery screening and have a lot of stock of G7's. They would be better than a cheap android phone in a magazine advertisement[1] :-). Also the G7 has a gorgeous screen, I wonder if those are being recycled into new gear or if there is some booth selling off screens somewhere. [1] http://mashable.com/2012/10/02/ew-has-smartphone-inside/#Nq6dEIiFaGqs http://mashable.com/2012/10/02/ew-has-smartphone-inside/#Nq6...
- mojoB 10y agoThe original batteries were supplied by Samsung SDI [1], so I doubt there would be any firing. I haven’t seen the who the second supplier was. [1] http://www.gsmarena.com/galaxy_note7_will_longer_come_with_samsung_sdi_batteries-news-20358.php http://www.gsmarena.com/galaxy_note7_will_longer_come_with_s...
- partycoder 10y agoIt will be hard for them to recover from this. They will have to aggressively lower the prices to attract customers.
- iscrewyou 10y agoMissing insulation tape. That one made me say, "of course they caught on fire."
- yongjik 10y ago> Missing insulation tape. Yeah, wow, how does that even happen?
- nitrogen 10y agoIt looks like, based on the infographic, the insulation tape was punctured by overly tall welds.
- mparlane 10y agoThat is not the missing insulation the parent comment is talking about. The insulation puncture is another fault.
- AceJohnny2 10y agoOh well that's not very typical, I'd like to make that point... (reference: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM) Seriously, these findings are facepalm-worthy. It really doesn't inspire any confidence in their quality control.
- JohnJamesRambo 10y agoI'm pretty proud of them for making an easy to understand infographic about the problem instead of a bunch of text jargon.
- quanticle 10y agoI hope you're being sarcastic. I, for one, would have preferred an actual root cause analysis, with all the technical detail. This just feels vaguely patronizing, like Samsung expects me to not be able to understand the electrical details. I mean, I get why they're releasing a summary infographic. The fewer details they release, the fewer things they're vulnerable to lawsuits over. But at the same time, I do think that it's important for society as a whole for companies to release the root-cause-analyses when their products have caused harm, so that other companies in the future know exactly what to watch out far and what sorts of designs to avoid. Right now, there's nothing preventing some other phone manufacturer from making the same mistakes as Samsung, with the same results.
- Veen 10y agoSamsumg was communicating with the majority of their customers, not writing a report especially for you, quanticle.
- nitrogen 10y agoI second this, except for the "hope you're being sarcastic" bit. Publicly accessible root cause analysis data could do for consumer electronics and software development what the NTSB has done for aviation. However, it does look like in this case additional data from a few regulatory or quasi-regulatory agencies has been provided (PDF links after the infographic), and the infographic is reasonably detailed.
- bigtones 10y agoThe root cause analysis from three different engineering firms is in the linked analyst reports in the footer. Samsung are not being patronising, they're producing content all their affected customers can understand with the infographic, and for those that are more technically inclined or curious - they releasing the technical reports they commissioned in full with all the analysis and findings. You can't fault them for that level of disclosure.
- yeukhon 10y agoI recommend the video explanation: https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-announces-new-and-enhanced-quality-assurance-measures-to-improve-product-safety https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-announces-new-and-en...
- hetfeld 10y agoWhat about independent researches and tests that all state obvious facts - battery is not that bad, but the overall internal construction was flawed the battery was positioned close to high-heating elements which caused the overheating the battery and blasts. Pathetic false statements from Samsung, but nothing new. Who can trust this crooked company after such bs explanations...
- dovdovdov 10y agoit feels like if you almost read the article.
- hetfeld 10y agofeels like you almost understood what i ment.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoI'm confused. The only "independent research" I've seen regarding the battery has been articles written by people guessing (maybe educated but still a guess) at the problem. Was there independent research outside of the 3 separate companies Samsung used? Is their research available for download and how does it compare with the 4 sets of research in the linked article above? > Who can trust this crooked company after such bs explanations... Considering there really wasn't a lot of exploding phones they recalled pretty damn quickly. Why would they even lie here? What would they gain? If they lie, do it again and they're going have to take them all back again. I don't get what you're going on about.
- sschueller 10y agoNow if the battery would have been removable this would probably have worked out a lot different. Why do we not have standardized removable batteries for mobile phones?
- dmix 10y agoProbably makes industrial design much simpler, A) no removeable case, B) battery does not have to be in an accessible area so internal cords/boards can go on both sides. I personally used Galaxy phones instead of Nexus for the entire reason it had a replacable battery. I loved never having to charge my phone when it died, just popping in the battery into a charger with 2 backups. One always in my bag. So removing it was the reason I stopped using their phones and I doubt I'm the only one. But that said I doubt they would recall the battery only. They'd definitely ask for the whole phone back until investigation is done. Look how long this took.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago> Why do we not have standardized removable batteries for mobile phones? Because customers don't want them. Yes yes I know almost everyone, including myself, on HN and probably a good chunk of Reddit does want removable batteries. But the majority of customers simply do not care and having them non-removable means it's easier to make them properly water proof or resistant, thinner and larger batteries (easier to cram into the available space). Another thing to keep in mind is the average life span of a phone in the US is 2 years. That amount of time is unlikely to wear a battery into being useless so you're only going to need to replace it if you are a heavy phone user and carry additional(s) batteries with you.
- hrrsn 10y agoI should point out for years we had phones with replaceable batteries. I didn't know anybody that carried one with them.
- owenversteeg 10y agoSince I have a bit of experience in the world of batteries I thought I'd post. First of all, deflected electrodes, insufficient insulation tape, and high welding burrs are absolutely fine explanations for what happened here. As someone who works with batteries, that would tell me everything I wanted to know. If I was running a battery fab, I'd be able to check for these problems in 20 minutes. Further in the favor of Samsung is that battery fabs are some of the most opaque places in the world. They never release any information of any value whatsoever to the outside, and there are only a handful in the world. For Samsung to release something like this so candidly is absolutely unprecedented in the world of batteries; I was shocked when I saw the post. Say what you will about Samsung in general, or about their treatment of the whole process, but posting this is a first among any of the major battery manufacturers and shocked me with its level of openness and detail. ------------------- If anyone doubts this, try getting information on the closest battery fab to you. You can try to find what batteries they produce, but chances are that's not public. You can try to find their name, or if they still exist, but that's probably also not public. You might eventually find an address, and you might go there, but when you arrive you'll be forcibly removed from the area by armed security and/or police. To give an example, there are a couple debates in the industry about what company acquired another company. It's years after the supposed acquisition, and nobody knows anything. The battery industry is a whole secretive world of its own, and this is because batteries are simultaneously a low-profit commodity and a gateway to unlimited riches. If Apple is successful with its dream technology, it might capture 50% of the world smartphone market instead of the 14% it has now. If a battery company is successful, it will become successful beyond your wildest dreams. Lots of things are just on the edge of being possible with today's battery tech. The first one to 'win' gets to go from selling a couple billion of batteries (to small fish, like EV and power tool makers) to selling trillions of dollars to everyone that will buy, including every electric utility in the world that will be ecstatic to have the perfect demand-smoothing device.
- logicallee 10y agoThanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Slightly off-topic, but perhaps interesting enough to keep here: You state that battery fabs are very opaque. Could you tell us some things we might be surprised to learn about battery manufacturing or technology in general? Thank you.
- c3534l 10y agoI think the Galaxy Note 7 is going to become a classic business case study. They did everything right following the crisis and in the follow-up investigation. I wonder how will it will actually pan out for them, though.
- M4v3R 10y agoThey did everything right only AFTER ignoring the problem first, then doing a wonky first recall and only in the end recalling the devices completely. So while in the end they did the right thing, the way they've handled the whole situation was suboptimal to be generous.
- megablast 10y agoReally? They were late in doing a recall, the government had to do one first. Then they finally did, but not in every country (they still haven't done one in many countries). Then they re-released the phone that was still exploding. How anyone can say they did everything right is insane.
- MikusR 10y ago>They were late in doing a recall, the government had to do one first. Where?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- syshum 10y ago1. Which government did this Recall? In the US all Recalls were Voluntary as defined under US CPSC Rules 2. None of the phones "Exploded" they caught fire, big difference 3. What exactly do you believe they should have have done differently
- prewett 10y agoClassic business case study, yes. Perhaps in direct contrast to doing everything right, unlike Intel's FDIV recall and J&J's original Tylenol recall. I'll bet that if you do word associations with "Samsung phone" a lot of people will say "fire," "exploding" or something similar. Now if you were trying to create that association it would be great marketing, but I'm guessing Samsung's marketing department was going for a different association.
- SaaSAddict 10y agoAt least they admit to theit mistakes...
- SaaSAddict 10y agoAt least they admit to theit mistakes...
- heisenbit 10y agoThe MSN reports this as battery defects. Both "defects" were however made more critical by the tight containment within the phone. It is not simply a component but a system engineering issue - from objective, design, tooling, manufacturing to QC. Like with the Challenger disaster there is a cultural problem. The press release calls into question that Samsung fully owns up to it.
- pasta 10y agoMaybe all those Note7s are already recycled, but couldn't they just release it again with good batteries? Or would replacing the battery and re-distributing the phone cost more than just release a new phone?
- lysp 10y agoThey could, but after the bad PR I doubt anyone (in large amounts) would want to buy them. If they did, it'd be better to make it a slightly different shape and then release it under a different name.
- ninkendo 10y agoDidn't they already do that once though? The problem was the new battery was bad too. If lightning strikes twice you generally don't take a third chance, at least not when the PR is this bad.
- hisham_hm 10y agoIs it me or the zoomed-out images for both sides in the Main Cause section of Battery B are the same? They clearly shouldn't be when they expand to such different images, and the difference is precisely what the infographic is trying to explain. It seems to me it's a classic copy-and-paste error caused by haste/laziness. How ironic that the infographic made to explain the buggy batteries is buggy as well.
- djsumdog 10y agoBig Clive does a really amazing (and dangerous) tear down of what's inside a Lithium Ion cell, in case anyone wants to see what the parts in the diagram physically look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI1eRy0uBI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI1eRy0uBI8
- dghughes 10y agoEven so I still think Samsung phones are getting worse for quality as each year passes the quality is rapidly declining. My old Samsung Galaxy S2 is still going strong no screen protector, whatever OS version it is now, and the original battery. I gave the S2 to my dad for a while then I gave him my old S3 so then my sister got the S2 and it still has no scratches on the screen still works great. The S3 was my second one it was replaced after the screen spontaneously cracked now it's on it's third battery and the WiFi had stopped working. The screen has a scratch on it too I barely got it home before it was scratched I didn't even have time to buy a screen protector. My S5 is failing even faster and I am also on my third battery soon to be fourth. The screen scratches far easier than the S2. My next phone will not be a Samsung.
- kilroy123 10y agoI agree completely. I had the original Samsung Vibrant, then almost every Galaxy phone up the 7. After the 5th one, each phone was worse than the last. I'll never go back to a Samsung. Couldn't be happier with my Nexus 6P. Not the most powerful phone out there, but it just works.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoAnecdata, anecdata... My experience is quite the opposite. My current phone is Galaxy S7, and I'm very happy with it. Close to year of use without any screen protector whatsoever, and it only recently got some tiny, barely visible scratches (I think I may have accidentally put it with something sharp in the same pocket). My previous phone, S4, survived a lot of abuse, including breaking the glass twice; when I switched to S7, it was still perfectly fine, so I gave it to my brother. My SO's S3 works fine to this day; only recently I replaced her the broken glass. The only issue my SO and I have with our phones is that, in time, they get annoyingly slow. But I can't really blame Samsung for the absurd amount of software bloat the mobile ecosystem accrues every year. Same crap is continuing to eat desktop and web anyway. (I'm dreading the day when someone will have the brilliant idea of porting Electron to Android...)
- sengork 10y agoThis entire ordeal would have been so much less impactful to both Samsung and the end users if they simply went down the old and proven replaceable battery route. Not to mention it'd very likely be much more economical and eco-friendly from overall end-to-end perspective. It has consumed the time and resources they could have otherwise devoted to innovating for next generation of the phone lines. All they needed to sacrifice is about ~1mm of phone thickness...
- newtorob 10y agoThis whole thing would have been avoided easily, if the batteries were removable.