AmazonBasics Electronics Fire Safety Investigation • Hacker News Board

Re: AmazonBasics Electronics Fire Safety Investigation

#21

Post by bradgessler » Thu, Sep 10, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

FerretFred wrote: post #7

Shopping with Amazon has become increasingly difficult. I can no longer rely on the reviews, and the volume of results that come up for even a simple search make for a lot of searching. Amazon really, really need to stop being the dumpster for cheap and nasty China-manufactured goods. And yes, of course I'm welcome to shop elsewhere if I don't like what's on offer, and that's what I'm increasingly doing. Bezos' loss,…

I miss the Amazon from yesteryear when Prime was first launched. You could confidently read and trust the reviews, 1-click buy the item when satisfied, and have it show up 1-2 days later. Today that magic is lost; it’s mostly a huge junk store with untrustworthy reviews.

Something I can’t really get my head around is that it seems like such an obvious problem to identify within Amazon’s ranks, and correcting it feels like something within their means, but they just ... don’t.

Are there any e-commerce sites that exist today with the same magic Amazon use to have?

Re: AmazonBasics Electronics Fire Safety Investigation

#22

Post by mike503 » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 9:43 AM UTC

I was under the impression AmazonBasics was very much like Costco’s Kirkland brand, where they relabeled some other manufacturer's products. Maybe I’m wrong. Or it’s hit and miss.

Re: AmazonBasics Electronics Fire Safety Investigation

#23

Post by smileypete » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

argb wrote: post #18

ars wrote: post #2

This article is just a stupid hit piece. A USB cord is not responsible for detecting short circuits. That's the job of the charger not the cord. The best cord in the entire universe cannot prevent short circuits.

But the USB charger manufacturers could do better by shutting down the output should arcing/sparking be detected. We already have this for 120V AC supplies, and it should be doable for 5V DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc-fault_circuit_interrupter

>But the USB charger manufacturers could do better by shutting down the output should arcing/sparking be detected.

A poor connection at a plug can (or will?) cause a hot spot without arcing, and for a long thin cable a short may not even trigger the overcurrent protection of a high power charger.

Best to buy a cable with a decent 'AWG rating' eg 24AWG, either from a reputable brand like Tronsmart, or a specialist supplier, in the UK there's Kenable:

https://www.kenable.co.uk/en/

Re: AmazonBasics Electronics Fire Safety Investigation

#24

Post by Tarsul » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

FerretFred wrote: post #7

Shopping with Amazon has become increasingly difficult. I can no longer rely on the reviews, and the volume of results that come up for even a simple search make for a lot of searching. Amazon really, really need to stop being the dumpster for cheap and nasty China-manufactured goods. And yes, of course I'm welcome to shop elsewhere if I don't like what's on offer, and that's what I'm increasingly doing. Bezos' loss,…

It appears to be a similar problem akin to facebook, twitter etc. which promote "every" content no matter how bad (e.g. trolling etc.) it is for as long as the underlying metrics (e.g. click rates, revenue) appear to go up. However, they don't see the second order effect, namely that customers lose interest in engaging with the sites over the long run and start looking for alternatives.