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I never thought it would happen to me either. I knew the risks. I took care of my devices. I treated my devices with lithium ion as a loaded gun. But it happene

I never thought it would happen to me either. I knew the risks. I took care of my devices. I treated my devices with lithium ion as a loaded gun. But it happened. It happened suddenly, and if I wasn't present, it would have taken out my home and killed my pets and possibly my wife. I wrote this not to shame Bose. But to highlight the risk of personal wearables and lithium ion technologies.

mitigating 5y ago
Everyone is aware of the risks, there were a bunch of stories about airplane cell phone fires a few years ago. What are suggesting people do? Headphones only function while on your head.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  > Everyone is aware of the risks 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.
- sgwizdak 5y ago
  I never thought that my wireless headphones had enough juice to fill my house with smoke, to burn for 15 minutes, or result in chemical burns to the user.
  - RL_Quine 5y ago
    They're made of thermoplastic, practically everything plastic burns except for the few things around which are regulated to be impregnated with fire retardants (children's clothes, furniture, etc). Unless what you're holding is made entirely of metal or ceramic, you can be pretty sure that it is some degree of fire risk, if it contains a battery or not.
  - oynqr 5y ago
    Last time I checked, the energy densities of modern batteries were approaching that of TNT. Which is insanely worrying to me.
    - Kliment 5y ago
      The energy densities of modern batteries are a couple factors lower than that of gasoline, and much lower than TNT. Gasoline is incredibly energy-dense, but its energy density is comparable to butter. Do you worry about sticks of butter exploding on you? No, you don't. Gasoline is dangerous because it really likes to evaporate and the mixture of gasoline fumes and air ignites at the slightest provocation. Batteries are dangerous because they can go into thermal runaway from an internal short if the barrier between the electrodes fails. The energy density is not what matters here.
      - camkego 5y ago
        Try googling both: "1999 butter fire" "1991 butter fire" Wisconsin and France have had notable butter fires. So I guess even butter fires can be bad news.
        Kliment 5y ago
        If you're into foodstuff-related destruction, the other things to search for are "flour explosion" and "molasses disaster"
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      A lithium ion battery has about 2-3% as much energy per gram as a chocolate bar. The energy density is not what causes safety issues.
- spekcular 5y ago
  I was not aware of these risks. I knew that li-ion batteries were flammable but didn't realize they would malfunction in consumer devices. Now I know!
  - disillusioned 5y ago
    You weren't around for the Galaxy Note debacle?
    - ImprobableTruth 5y ago
      I mean, it being not the standard is exactly why it's a debacle, right?
  - mitigating 5y ago
    There was a period of months where cell phone fires on planes was all over the news. There's also a massive recall of the Chevy Bolt recently.
- romwell 5y ago
  >Everyone is aware of the risks, there were a bunch of stories about airplane cell phone fires a few years ago. No harm warning about these risks on the label, then? Everyone is aware, so it surely won't hurt the bottom line.
dataflow 5y ago
This was terrifying to read, but thanks for sharing. I've been paranoid about Li-Ion battery proliferation for a while, and always worried something like this might happen to me. I never expected headphones to do this though, more like cell phones or laptops. 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?
- sgwizdak 5y ago
  Things happened very quickly. I managed to get the headphones out of the house in under 10s. I may have been screaming obscenities at the time. I just recall a sticky residue somehow ended up on my hands and that's what burned. There was also some burning from thermals. I obviously tried to hold my breath to some extent, but the smoke persisted in the house for a while.
  - xvf22 5y ago
    Possibly when you were looking for the serial number?
- Zigurd 5y ago
  When I first read this, having been a p-chem nerd long ago, and having had some burns, I had questions about how one could get a chemical burn on one's arms from a relatively small battery in headphones. It turns out that lithium battery fires produce HF, which you do not want to be exposed to at all. Very plausible that HF and other chemicals in the fire could cause a burn on skin without splashing any liquid around. In fact if there was any concentration of HF large enough to be splashed, it would have been a potentially fatal risk. If I ever encounter a burning Li battery, getting it out of an enclosed space would be a high priority.
k_sze 5y ago
Is it lithium ion? or lithium polymer? Apparently there’s a difference and lithium polymer is supposed to be a lot safer.
- Kliment 5y ago
  Devices of that size almost universally use prismatic lithium-polymer cells.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Actually lithium polymer is a bit of a misnomer. Almost all "lipo" batteries are actually liion but the name now means more "li ion in a pouch" instead of pointing to any specific chemistry. So in most cases, the battery that powers your cellphone has more or less the same chemistry than a regular 18650. True Lithium-polymer is a real battery chemistry but it is very rarely used. 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.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    This is all spot on as far as I can see.
romwell 5y ago
So you are the OP? 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/Duty-to-Report-to-the-CPSC-Your-Rights-and-Responsibilities https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Recall-Guidance... [2]https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting
- klyrs 5y ago
  > If someone were to make a self-exploding car, they'd be out of carmaking very fast. 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-fire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-f... https://www.inquirer.com/business/cars-battery-fires-fear-law-suits-gm-bolt-20211031.html https://www.inquirer.com/business/cars-battery-fires-fear-la...
  - romwell 5y ago
    Alas. Nevertheless, from the article: >“We don’t think every vehicle has this rare manufacturing defect,” General Motors spokesman Dan Flores said. “But we can’t take a chance, so we’re recalling all the vehicles.” I mean, that comes pretty close to be out of electric car making. The same should happen to Bose. A total recall of all wireless headphones they ever made would be a good start. ------- PS: I'm spending more time in headphones than I do in my car; it's fair to hold them to the same standard.
mrmattyboy 5y ago
I wouldn't say 'not the blame' Bose directly, I take your blog post as two points: - 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!!
- Aeolun 5y ago
  But what would you expect support to do? When you call a random callcenter agent the best they’re going to be able to do is comp you a new set of headphones.
  - romwell 5y ago
    >But what would you expect support to do? Here's a response I expect. Take this as a model customer service response if you are in the business of selling (potentially) self-exploding devices: ------- Dear <Customer Name>. Thank you for reporting the incident to us. I have escalated your report to the engineering team. A representative of our company will be reaching out to you to inquire for further details to find out the exact cause of the malfunction to prevent it from happening in the future. As our product have caused you harm, I may not assist you further, as all I can do is offer a replacement product. I have therefore forwarded your request to our Consumer Relations team senior specialist <Firstname Lastname> who will reach out to you by <timeframe> with regards to settling this in a manner satisfactory to you. They can be reached directly by <phone x extension> or by email at <email address>. We take safety seriously, and we are immediately reporting this incident to CPSC, as we are obligated by law. You can do your part at the following web address: https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting Thank you so much for reporting this incident in detail, and helping us make our products safer for everyone!
  - sgwizdak 5y ago
    It was more like a $20 discount. It took a bit of prodding for them realize this was a safety issue and get connected to the right team, but I had no complaints on that. No comment regarding the rest of the process, it's still too early. The intent of the article was to highlight a potential issue with a pretty common pair of headphones that's used in the tech world, and one that I used to personally recommend to people.
userbinator 5y ago
It happened suddenly, and if I wasn't present, it would have taken out my home and killed my pets and possibly my wife. 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.
- marvel_boy 5y ago
  No, there is no fire retardant in the thermoplastic. He is not paranoic, he is just explaining the fact.
  - drsnow 5y ago
    Why do you call it thermoplastic instead of just plastic
- Zigurd 5y ago
  The plastic will burn. In addition to HF and other very nasty things the battery fire emits, the burning plastic is also very nasty: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Judging by the photo the OP posted it self extinguished. So it doesn't readily sustain a flame even when exposed to fire, and that makes it fire retardant. It probably does emit some very nasty gases while it does that, plastics are, as a rule, not nice to be near when they are burning or exposed to flames, all kinds of nasty stuff can come out of them, including dioxins.

mitigating 5y ago

Everyone is aware of the risks, there were a bunch of stories about airplane cell phone fires a few years ago. What are suggesting people do? Headphones only function while on your head.

5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
> Everyone is aware of the risks 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.
sgwizdak 5y ago
I never thought that my wireless headphones had enough juice to fill my house with smoke, to burn for 15 minutes, or result in chemical burns to the user.
- RL_Quine 5y ago
  They're made of thermoplastic, practically everything plastic burns except for the few things around which are regulated to be impregnated with fire retardants (children's clothes, furniture, etc). Unless what you're holding is made entirely of metal or ceramic, you can be pretty sure that it is some degree of fire risk, if it contains a battery or not.
- oynqr 5y ago
  Last time I checked, the energy densities of modern batteries were approaching that of TNT. Which is insanely worrying to me.
  - Kliment 5y ago
    The energy densities of modern batteries are a couple factors lower than that of gasoline, and much lower than TNT. Gasoline is incredibly energy-dense, but its energy density is comparable to butter. Do you worry about sticks of butter exploding on you? No, you don't. Gasoline is dangerous because it really likes to evaporate and the mixture of gasoline fumes and air ignites at the slightest provocation. Batteries are dangerous because they can go into thermal runaway from an internal short if the barrier between the electrodes fails. The energy density is not what matters here.
    - camkego 5y ago
      Try googling both: "1999 butter fire" "1991 butter fire" Wisconsin and France have had notable butter fires. So I guess even butter fires can be bad news.
      - Kliment 5y ago
        If you're into foodstuff-related destruction, the other things to search for are "flour explosion" and "molasses disaster"
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    A lithium ion battery has about 2-3% as much energy per gram as a chocolate bar. The energy density is not what causes safety issues.
spekcular 5y ago
I was not aware of these risks. I knew that li-ion batteries were flammable but didn't realize they would malfunction in consumer devices. Now I know!
- disillusioned 5y ago
  You weren't around for the Galaxy Note debacle?
  - ImprobableTruth 5y ago
    I mean, it being not the standard is exactly why it's a debacle, right?
- mitigating 5y ago
  There was a period of months where cell phone fires on planes was all over the news. There's also a massive recall of the Chevy Bolt recently.
romwell 5y ago
>Everyone is aware of the risks, there were a bunch of stories about airplane cell phone fires a few years ago. No harm warning about these risks on the label, then? Everyone is aware, so it surely won't hurt the bottom line.

dataflow 5y ago

This was terrifying to read, but thanks for sharing. I've been paranoid about Li-Ion battery proliferation for a while, and always worried something like this might happen to me. I never expected headphones to do this though, more like cell phones or laptops. 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?

sgwizdak 5y ago
Things happened very quickly. I managed to get the headphones out of the house in under 10s. I may have been screaming obscenities at the time. I just recall a sticky residue somehow ended up on my hands and that's what burned. There was also some burning from thermals. I obviously tried to hold my breath to some extent, but the smoke persisted in the house for a while.
- xvf22 5y ago
  Possibly when you were looking for the serial number?
Zigurd 5y ago
When I first read this, having been a p-chem nerd long ago, and having had some burns, I had questions about how one could get a chemical burn on one's arms from a relatively small battery in headphones. It turns out that lithium battery fires produce HF, which you do not want to be exposed to at all. Very plausible that HF and other chemicals in the fire could cause a burn on skin without splashing any liquid around. In fact if there was any concentration of HF large enough to be splashed, it would have been a potentially fatal risk. If I ever encounter a burning Li battery, getting it out of an enclosed space would be a high priority.

k_sze 5y ago

Is it lithium ion? or lithium polymer? Apparently there’s a difference and lithium polymer is supposed to be a lot safer.

Kliment 5y ago
Devices of that size almost universally use prismatic lithium-polymer cells.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Actually lithium polymer is a bit of a misnomer. Almost all "lipo" batteries are actually liion but the name now means more "li ion in a pouch" instead of pointing to any specific chemistry. So in most cases, the battery that powers your cellphone has more or less the same chemistry than a regular 18650. True Lithium-polymer is a real battery chemistry but it is very rarely used. 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.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  This is all spot on as far as I can see.

romwell 5y ago

So you are the OP? 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/Duty-to-Report-to-the-CPSC-Your-Rights-and-Responsibilities https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Recall-Guidance... [2]https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting

klyrs 5y ago
> If someone were to make a self-exploding car, they'd be out of carmaking very fast. 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-fire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-f... https://www.inquirer.com/business/cars-battery-fires-fear-law-suits-gm-bolt-20211031.html https://www.inquirer.com/business/cars-battery-fires-fear-la...
- romwell 5y ago
  Alas. Nevertheless, from the article: >“We don’t think every vehicle has this rare manufacturing defect,” General Motors spokesman Dan Flores said. “But we can’t take a chance, so we’re recalling all the vehicles.” I mean, that comes pretty close to be out of electric car making. The same should happen to Bose. A total recall of all wireless headphones they ever made would be a good start. ------- PS: I'm spending more time in headphones than I do in my car; it's fair to hold them to the same standard.

mrmattyboy 5y ago

I wouldn't say 'not the blame' Bose directly, I take your blog post as two points: - 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!!

Aeolun 5y ago
But what would you expect support to do? When you call a random callcenter agent the best they’re going to be able to do is comp you a new set of headphones.
- romwell 5y ago
  >But what would you expect support to do? Here's a response I expect. Take this as a model customer service response if you are in the business of selling (potentially) self-exploding devices: ------- Dear <Customer Name>. Thank you for reporting the incident to us. I have escalated your report to the engineering team. A representative of our company will be reaching out to you to inquire for further details to find out the exact cause of the malfunction to prevent it from happening in the future. As our product have caused you harm, I may not assist you further, as all I can do is offer a replacement product. I have therefore forwarded your request to our Consumer Relations team senior specialist <Firstname Lastname> who will reach out to you by <timeframe> with regards to settling this in a manner satisfactory to you. They can be reached directly by <phone x extension> or by email at <email address>. We take safety seriously, and we are immediately reporting this incident to CPSC, as we are obligated by law. You can do your part at the following web address: https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting https://www.saferproducts.gov/IncidentReporting Thank you so much for reporting this incident in detail, and helping us make our products safer for everyone!
- sgwizdak 5y ago
  It was more like a $20 discount. It took a bit of prodding for them realize this was a safety issue and get connected to the right team, but I had no complaints on that. No comment regarding the rest of the process, it's still too early. The intent of the article was to highlight a potential issue with a pretty common pair of headphones that's used in the tech world, and one that I used to personally recommend to people.

userbinator 5y ago

It happened suddenly, and if I wasn't present, it would have taken out my home and killed my pets and possibly my wife. 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.

marvel_boy 5y ago
No, there is no fire retardant in the thermoplastic. He is not paranoic, he is just explaining the fact.
- drsnow 5y ago
  Why do you call it thermoplastic instead of just plastic
Zigurd 5y ago
The plastic will burn. In addition to HF and other very nasty things the battery fire emits, the burning plastic is also very nasty: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Judging by the photo the OP posted it self extinguished. So it doesn't readily sustain a flame even when exposed to fire, and that makes it fire retardant. It probably does emit some very nasty gases while it does that, plastics are, as a rule, not nice to be near when they are burning or exposed to flames, all kinds of nasty stuff can come out of them, including dioxins.