Samsung To Temporarily Halt Galaxy Note 7 Production

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Citing the always reliable "person with direct knowledge of the matter," Bloomberg says that Samsung has temporarily halted production of the Galaxy Note 7 until it can figure out the whole exploding thingy. Not sure why they didn't do this from the start but, better late than never I guess.

Samsung temporarily suspended production of its most expensive phone, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said Monday, asking not to be identified because the decision isn’t public. The move came as wireless carriers including AT&T Inc., T-Mobile US Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Australia’s Telstra Corp. stopped selling Note 7s following reports of problems with devices thought to be safe.
 
There is always enough time to fix things on the second third go-around.
 
Samsung will rise from the ashes of its own phones and make the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Phoenix!


Well when it blows up at least this way they can say they did warn you....
 
On a serious note, it is possible the Galaxy brand will be damaged going forward, not just the Note line. Because for the non-techies out there who do not pay attention to details it is possible they will not make distinctions between Galaxy note and standard Galaxy smartphones. Example, if Galaxy Note 7 is banned from airline travel, are we seriously expecting airline workers to be able to identify Galaxy Note 7 vs Galaxy S7, Galaxy Edge S7, or prior Galaxy smartphones?

Anything with the name Galaxy on it is going to explode or catch fire may become the popular belief, even though this is really only a problem with the Note 7 product.
 
Rahh said:
How many have blown up thus far?
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None.

There have been (as I was last aware) 92 cases of investigated burns and fires from the phones, these have not been confirmed, just investigated. Out of over 1 million phones sold, the cases that have been confirmed, most were left inside hot cars to charge, they DO have a over heating battery problem, but it seems to actually make it catch on fire requires more than just charging, such as being in an already hot environment. But, lets assume all of those 92 cases were confirmed, and all of them happened in nice A/C rooms from charging only, that's what....0.0092%?

These numbers probably have changed, I don't know what the confirmed cases might be at, however the noise being made about it is well...Out of proportion. Most of the stories online are copies of each other, with very little real or vetted information, lots of "this person said this happened", very few have actual proof of the phone having an issue or even owning one. Again, that is not to say that they do not have a battery problem....THEY DO. However the numbers are ungodly small, but reports would have you believe these things are "blowing up" left and right.
 
BlueFireIce said:
None.

There have been (as I was last aware) 92 cases of investigated burns and fires from the phones, these have not been confirmed, just investigated. Out of over 1 million phones sold, the cases that have been confirmed, most were left inside hot cars to charge, they DO have a over heating battery problem, but it seems to actually make it catch on fire requires more than just charging, such as being in an already hot environment. But, lets assume all of those 92 cases were confirmed, and all of them happened in nice A/C rooms from charging only, that's what....0.0092%?

These numbers probably have changed, I don't know what the confirmed cases might be at, however the noise being made about it is well...Out of proportion. Most of the stories online are copies of each other, with very little real or vetted information, lots of "this person said this happened", very few have actual proof of the phone having an issue or even owning one. Again, that is not to say that they do not have a battery problem....THEY DO. However the numbers are ungodly small, but reports would have you believe these things are "blowing up" left and right.
Click to expand...

Having these sample size isn't small at all. You don't see any other phone come even close to that, especially this is a hazard causing problem, shouldn't even be taken lightly like what Samsung is doing.


Didn't the Samsung washer also explodes around the same time ? LOL
 
biggles said:
On a serious note, it is possible the Galaxy brand will be damaged going forward, not just the Note line. Because for the non-techies out there who do not pay attention to details it is possible they will not make distinctions between Galaxy note and standard Galaxy smartphones. Example, if Galaxy Note 7 is banned from airline travel, are we seriously expecting airline workers to be able to identify Galaxy Note 7 vs Galaxy S7, Galaxy Edge S7, or prior Galaxy smartphones?

Anything with the name Galaxy on it is going to explode or catch fire may become the popular belief, even though this is really only a problem with the Note 7 product.
Click to expand...

Common folk won't know the difference. Had a conversation with the passenger next to me on a flight to Dallas after that Note 7 warning from the attendant. She had a Galaxy S7, but was afraid it was the bad one.

I told her the absolute worst case that could happen is it burns a hole in the fuselage causing an explosive decompression and rips our row of seats out. I then went about watching my Air Crash Investigation show. Jk, I didn't say that.
 
shansoft said:
Having these sample size isn't small at all. You don't see any other phone come even close to that, especially this is a hazard causing problem, shouldn't even be taken lightly like what Samsung is doing.


Didn't the Samsung washer also explodes around the same time ? LOL
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Sample size is small, extremely so, and that's when including all investigated reports, not just confirmed issues. I was also behind on the number of phones, which is not 1 million, but 2.5 million and confirmed cases world wide is at only 35, this includes just burns/swollen batteries and not just fires. So that drops it down to 0.0014%. We also have a number of new cases of iPhone 7s that have cough fire, bulging batteries and over heating batteries and burns, so if you are not seeing these reports I guess you are just not looking?
 
"temporarily" is such a permanent word. They need to kill it and start over. I had 4 of these pre-ordered, and was pissed when BestBuy/Verizon canceled my order because I was on the buy 1 get 1 free deal. Now I feel lucky...I bought some refurbished Note 4s, and am completely happy. Removable batteries cometh!
 
Mathemabeat said:
No longer temporary.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj....scontinue-galaxy-note-7-smartphone-1476177331


Looks like Samsung has done the smart thing and have permanently discontinued the phone. Will be interesting to see if this has any long term effect on their Galaxy brand or even Samsung in general.
Click to expand...

That's unfortunate, hopefully they reconsider and actually fix whatever the problem is if possible and re-release. (Which is probably what they're going to do based off my speculation, just under a different name.)

So, speculating.. this announcement probably infers that the problem goes beyond just bad batteries and is not something that they can 'just fix' without redesigning aspect(s) of the phone's charging system. That, or it's a more simplistic design issue where it's the environment bringing the device to the melting point, because said design doesn't protect the battery enough from ambient temperature/direct sunlight and it's the cause of the issue.

I wonder what the numbers are for these reported incidents of phones with compared to without cases, in sunlight compared to not, hot ambient temperature environment. I'll be very interested in the root cause once determined, other than 'battery design issue' - since there's a lot of these phones out there and the actual reported cases is still only double digits, and probably not that far ahead of the number of iPhones that have done the same thing, but isn't getting 'as much' media attention.


Also...two articles you don't have to sign in to read, though I haven't seen one article with a source link yet.
The Galaxy Note 7 is dead
Samsung kills off Galaxy Note 7 over safety fears
 
(IMHO) At this point, Samsung isn't fixing this trainwreck. So it was the prudent thing to kill the model off. The Note7 name is tainted now, not even an exorcist/witch doctor can fix it. ;)
 
Its a real shame!! There are no phones even comparable to the Note series atm. Looks like I will be stuck with my Note 5 for much longer than anticipated.
 
Its about time and they best finally get to the bottom of the issue so it doesn't happen again.
 
galaxynotevr-800x255.jpg


(source)
 
biggles said:
On a serious note, it is possible the Galaxy brand will be damaged going forward, not just the Note line. Because for the non-techies out there who do not pay attention to details it is possible they will not make distinctions between Galaxy note and standard Galaxy smartphones. Example, if Galaxy Note 7 is banned from airline travel, are we seriously expecting airline workers to be able to identify Galaxy Note 7 vs Galaxy S7, Galaxy Edge S7, or prior Galaxy smartphones?

Anything with the name Galaxy on it is going to explode or catch fire may become the popular belief, even though this is really only a problem with the Note 7 product.
Click to expand...

No.
 
It would be hilarious if they traced the root cause to the headphone jack.
 
DPI said:
No.
Click to expand...
DPI, I just spoke with Verizon last night on an unrelated issue and the Galaxy Note came up in conversation. Verizon rep said people with other Samsung phones (S6, S7, etc) are calling in concerned about their devices exploding or catching fire.
 
And the hits keep coming for Samsung

DOT Bans All Samsung Galaxy Note7 Phones from Airplanes


WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), today announced it is issuing an emergency order to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone devices from air transportation in the United States. Individuals who own or possess a Samsung Galaxy Note7 device may not transport the device on their person, in carry-on baggage, or in checked baggage on flights to, from, or within the United States. This prohibition includes all Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices. The phones also cannot be shipped as air cargo. The ban will be effective on Saturday, October 15, 2016, at noon ET.
Click to expand...
 
Now I'll bet Samsung wishes they hadn't a) skipped over the Note 6 name since that's what they'd be burying right now b) continued to follow the trend of nonremovable batteries. Although it's possible some hardware fault in the phone is at play (maybe even some tiny little plastic support bit is melting or softening in the sun like old cassette tapes, causing a short), it would have been much easier if they at least had the option of replacing the batteries instead of the whole phone.
 
Synful Serenity said:
it would have been much easier if they at least had the option of replacing the batteries instead of the whole phone.
Click to expand...

But they did end up replacing the batteries after the 1st recall - they replaced the batteries with ones made by an entirely different manufacturer than they used for the first production run and then what happened? Some of the replacement devices sent back to customers ended up exhibiting the exact same issue(s) so while having a completely user-replaceable battery in a device is awesome (and something I practically demand of my devices) in this situation that didn't help either.

Since they changed to different batteries then it remains to be seen where the actual defect(s) may lie but I'm leaning towards a design flaw that's putting undue pressure on the Li-Ion cells myself and bending the plates inside them causing a runaway situation depending on usage.
 
I wish they would be more forthcoming about what the problem is. Clearly, two different battery manufacturers having the same problem is quite coincidental. I'm definitely not a battery expert, but I'm taking a guess that the charging circuitry would be at fault. I read somewhere (source unknown) that the newest theory has to do with the power crossing the packs causing too high of heat and phone takes it over the edge. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ beats me though.
 
TheSoldier said:
I wish they would be more forthcoming about what the problem is.
Click to expand...

That's somewhat difficult at this moment considering the investigation into these issues is actually in progress. It's a very safe bet to say that if and when a cause is actually discovered, and it's reproducible on demand, then Samsung will release a statement of some kind outlining what happened and why. It won't do them any good at this point to worry about rectifying the situation because they've already committed to the complete destruction of every Note 7 that gets returned to them.

"The Note 7 is dead... long live the Note 7."
 
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