Video: http://www.twitvid.com/UBBWC
That looks like the wristband itself caught fire, not the charger? Perhaps the charger put out too much power, causing the wristband to catch fire?
Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
11–20 of 115 posts
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#12I'd worry about this more if my WakeMate would actually arrive... :(
This is pretty sad, though... I've been cheering for WakeMate since the beginning, but it's getting harder and harder... Are they at least sending new charger bricks at some point, perhaps a year or so from now (har har har)?
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#13Man, this is big. What a bummer for Wakemate. I admire your honesty though. Thanks for not keeping quiet.
Thanks for not keeping quiet. If they kept quiet and someone were injured or killed due to a known defective product wouldn't they be open to lawsuits?
We sent this email tonight within an hour of hearing about the first issue. One of our goals as a company is to increase people's quality of life -- starting with sleep. It was immediately apparent to us we had to tell our customers, especially if their safety was at all at risk.
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#14It's likely that the chargers that were tested and the chargers that actually ended up shipping are quite different inside. This seems to be a constant battle when going the Chinese route. You have to cut open a few from every shipment and check to see if inferior components have been subbed in since last time.
> This seems to be a constant battle when going the Chinese route.
is the savings really worth it? and how can one tell that they aren't getting scammed? seems like win-win for chinese companies to cut all possible corners. either they'll save a buck or they'll get caught and just have to get paid to make more.
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#15Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#16Video: http://www.twitvid.com/UBBWC
Wow... Seriously? Is this the issue WakeMate emailed about (I'm guessing it is) or is this another?
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#17I'd worry about this more if my WakeMate would actually arrive... :( This is pretty sad, though... I've been cheering for WakeMate since the beginning, but it's getting harder and harder... Are they at least sending new charger bricks at some point, perhaps a year or so from now (har har har)?
yes, but we will have to source new bricks first. We went with these black bricks because a) they looked cool, b) we could afford them, and c) samples of the bricks passed electrical surge and signal quality tests we had performed here in Mountain View. Maybe there's a reason Apple charges $29 for theirs...
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#18I could actually hear my charger audibly buzzing when I plugged it in for the first time today. Glad to hear it will be replaced!
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#19So the logical next question is are the battery paks in the band safe? What sort of safety cert was done on them?
yes the batteries are safe. we believe that the chargers are spitting out a noisy electrical signal, which is causing the battery charger IC on the WakeMate to overheat, thus causing the problem. We have only seen any incidence when the unit is plugged into the black USB charger bricks we shipped with. To date we have logged over 20000 hours of sleep on our system, so we're certain that sleeping with the Wakemate is…
I am curious, does your certification and testing involve anything with the FDA?
I worked at one of the big sleep companies before and we always had to adhere to FDA regulations even though we were careful to be 'monitoring' and not 'diagnosis/treatment'. The FDA also occasionally randomly popped in as a part of their standard monitoring process.
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#20I stopped using mine the day I got it because it emitted a annoying loud whiny noise the second I plugged it in. I immediately thought "cheap Chinese manufacturing" and started using my white iPhone charger instead. Glad I did.
What makes this more serious is that the WakeMate seems to be really power hungry and needs almost constant charging - I've noticed that it usually can't go 2 straight nights without a recharge. Since that's the case, I imagine most people just plug it into the defective charger each morning, so it's plugged in for about 16 hours per day. But maybe my battery is also defective ...
Not sure how these two are different technically (both probably have similar accelerometers), but I also have a FitBit that I wear all day long - yet I only need to charge that guy maybe once a week.
Hoping the WakeMate guys get through this, though ...