Did This Consumer Product Explode?
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 is part of an exclusive club. Can you identify its members?
After receiving more than 100 reports of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone overheating, smoking, catching fire, and, well, exploding, Samsung permanently halted production of the device on Tuesday. The company initially recalled the phone over a lithium-battery issue in September and offered new Note 7s to owners of the phone—but then three of the replacements caught fire, including one that burned through the floor of a Southwest Airlines plane. And Samsung’s woes aren’t even limited to phones. On Sept. 28, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning over the South Korean conglomerate’s washing machines after three women from Georgia, Texas, and Indiana sued the company for property damage. Their Samsung washing machines, they alleged, had exploded.
But Samsung is far from the only member of this combustible club. The CPSC’s recall list includes countless items that have been pulled from the shelves because they’ve sparked, overheated, or outright exploded—not to mention products that have earned recalls for other reasons. Can you identify which products have burst into flames or exploded, and which ones haven’t?