Why Samsung Galaxy Note 7 burst into flames

Samsung, the South Korean manufacturer of high-end smartphones, reported last Monday that it now knows why its Galaxy Note 7 phones caught fire in numerous instances around the globe. The company said it hired three independent “quality-control and supply-chain analysis firms” to carry out the investigation on why the phones burst into flames. The firms […]

Samsung, the South Korean manufacturer of high-end smartphones, reported last Monday that it now knows why its Galaxy Note 7 phones caught fire in numerous instances around the globe. The company said it hired three independent “quality-control and supply-chain analysis firms” to carry out the investigation on why the phones burst into flames. The firms attributed the problem to two design faults.

As stated in this column in Daily Trust on 12 September 2016, “When it launched on 19 August 2016, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was considered by many to be the closest-to-perfect smartphone, from both the look-and-feel and the workhorse performance.” However, two weeks after launch, at least 35 customers in the U.S. and South Korea had reported that their Note 7 phones burst into flames while the phones were being charged, and some after the phones had already been fully charged and disconnected from the charger. The chargers in all cases were the original ones that shipped with the phones, making the problem a bit more perplexing.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 disaster unfolded under the following timelines: Subsequent to the launch, the first report of an exploding Note 7 appeared on 24 August 2016, while Samsung announced a voluntary global recall of 2.5 million Note 7 phones on 2 September 2016. On 8 September 2016, the US Federal Aviation Authority forbade airline passengers to turn on or charge Note 7 on planes. The following day, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission asked people to stop using the phone. Replacement phones were reported to have also caught fire on 5 October 2016; and Samsung permanently stopped the production of Note 7 the following day. It’s reported that some users refused to turn in their phones; making Samsung to release updates that would limit or prevent charging!

As if the disaster wasn’t bad enough for Samsung, Apple, the arch rival in the high-end smartphone business, launched iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on 7 September 2016; which became available for purchase on 16 September 2016. All these positive things were happening to Apple while Samsung Electronics was frantically going through the grinds trying to solve its Galaxy Note 7 problem.

So what did the firms investigating the Note 7 disaster find? The two findings were officially published a week ago, though they had been leaked to the press a few days before that. The batteries for Galaxy Note 7 were produced by two companies: a Samsung affiliate called Samsung SDI Co., and a Hong Kong-based company called Amperex Technology Ltd. (ATL), the latter producing the batteries at a factory in China. Initially, Samsung officials believed the problem was confined to batteries made by the Samsung affiliate, and recalled those devices while significantly increasing the production of Note 7 smartphones that carried ATL batteries to replace the recalled phones. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of 20 January 2017 states that “continued reports of overheating replacement phones forced Samsung to issue a second recall in early October, pulling the plug entirely on the premium devices.”

The first fault pertains to the batteries made by Samsung SDI not fitting inside the phone properly, causing overheating and explosions. As stated above, in response to the first recall, Samsung increased production of Note 7 using batteries made by ATL. The resulting rush to ensure adequate supply of Note 7 devices was blamed for the cause of the second fault – with the increased pressure on production creating unknown “manufacturing issues.”

Honestly, these findings are not very convincing. Irregularly sized batteries?  Are components not made to design specifications anymore? I feel that Samsung’s engineering design and production is much too advanced to produce batteries that won’t fit or allow for thermal expansion in a slot. Also, the statement that the phones carrying batteries made by ATL had unnamed “manufacturing issues” is totally useless, if not unbelievable. One comment on the WSJ article, which is actually shared by many over the TV media, suggests “rapid charging that dramatically heats up the batteries” as the cause of the Note 7 explosion. The blogger states that “this was the first Samsung phone with USBC which runs at up to 100W – over 10x the previous mini USB.” Incidentally, I am inclined to share the statement that “the excuse that the batteries from one manufacturer were wrongly made, then the batteries from another were poorly made – and yet both had the same outcome – is too coincidental,” and that “there had to be a common factor making them both overheat.”

One blogger alludes to “one blunder after another.” She alludes to “racing to not lose sales/profit and shot themselves in the foot,” and that Samsung probably knows the precise cause of the problems, but is too embarrassed to admit it. For some reasons, I share this thought, though I also believe that the next Note that Samsung releases will be devoid of the explosion problem – because Samsung precisely knows the specifics of and the solution to – the Galaxy Note 7 explosion problem.