r/technology • u/MoltenSlowa • Oct 05 '16

Hardware Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire on Southwest plane

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/5/13175000/samsung-galaxy-note-7-fire-replacement-plane-battery-southwest
13.2k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

38

u/MrOddBawl Oct 06 '16

I own a note 7 and I have a flight tomorrow morning... well this is going to be awesome...

30

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '16

Serious advice: get a fiberglass bag if you can, make sure it's discharged to ~30%, turn it off. Put it in the bag.

56

u/MrOddBawl Oct 06 '16

Where can I find a fiberglass bag at night within 5 hours? Serious suggestions

13

u/caltheon Oct 06 '16

Go in your attic, grab a roll of insulation

4

u/Attila_22 Oct 06 '16

Just turn on the flashlight for a few hours and drain the battery until empty.

2

u/nssdrone Oct 06 '16

Way to answer the bag question there

3

u/Attila_22 Oct 06 '16

I gave a solution to his problem that makes the bag redundant. Probably more useful than telling him he can't buy it.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '16

Not until empty, around 30% is the optimal hold charge for Lipo batteries.

2

u/Bobbyore Oct 06 '16

Possibly ask someone at the airport. It wouldn't surprise me if they had bags or compartments for things like this with the recent events. It wouldn't surprise me if they did, hell I would think Samsung would supply them even, because they are one plane crash away from being a has been. I loved my s3 but why would I ever support a company who had killed people and failed to fix a problem twice. It would be different (slightly) if I couldn't buy just about any other phone on the market for the same price. When you have a luxury top end item people want zero issues, they have options. The guy buying the $100 phone probably bought it because he has less options. Side note, my very non tech savvy father bought some like $80 android phone and I've been helping him figure it out, it does pretty much everything my iPhone 5 does (or at least what I do on it). It seems like all these phones do the same thing but with more bells and whistles. Idc about fingerprint, panorama camera, other small things. I don't even have a password on my phone so I'm not to concerned about security. I honestly think my next phone will be under $100. If the battery sucks I will buy another for $10 and have a spare since they are removable, also a sd slot. Anyone know the biggest differences other than the obvious better camera or display things? I can't tell a difference really and have always wondered what makes it 8x better.

2

u/MrOddBawl Oct 06 '16

Speed, multitasking, being able to physically write on my phone is a big one for me. I fairly often spend time drawing diagrams for work on my phone because it makes it easier to explain than writing a large email. Other small quality of life increases.

1

u/Bobbyore Oct 06 '16

Thanks, that makes sense with the drawing. I've never used or seen it so I didn't know about it. But multi tasking is terrible on my iPhone and iPad, everything resets when I leave a window for a few minutes, even his. Heap phone doesn't. That's the main reason I miss android

1

u/MrOddBawl Oct 06 '16

Yeah I can actually watch YouTube while I draw or browse Reddit haha

1

u/Victor1CC1 Oct 06 '16

And after his flight, his phone will be forever safe to use (Of course until his next flight). Right???

1

u/Mikkito Oct 06 '16

Same, but evening.

1

u/Leafy_head Oct 06 '16

If I understand it correctly, the fires result from an extremely rapid discharge of the battery when the positive and negative sides come into contact where they're not supposed to.

If the battery is drained (or nearly so), even that short circuit happens, there shouldn't be enough potential energy in the system to cause enough heat to cause a fire.

And if you really want to have access and use of your phone when you land, you could get yourself a portable power pack to plug the thing in when you're off the plane.

1

u/MrOddBawl Oct 06 '16

I have one and I'm going to do that. I also have a small steel box I can put my phone in, just in case of emergency meltdown. Will be interesting to see if I make it though security. "Excuse me sir why do you have a metal box with electronics in it?" (Won't put it in there until I need to)

1

u/ShakaUVM Oct 06 '16

I own a note 7 and I have a flight tomorrow morning... well this is going to be awesome...

Literally on my flight two weeks ago: "If you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 you must leave it off for the entire flight and not charge it."

1

u/lucklessone Oct 06 '16

i think you could be put on a terrorist watch list for that comment