What exactly is the safety issue?
Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
51–60 of 115 posts
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#52Can we ask what the safety issue is? I don't have a wakemate, and I understand if there is a legal reason not too, but I am curious. Is it bursting into flames...?
clewiston answered it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2054884
That was a big vague. He said "causing the problem" but didn't go into specifics about what that problem might be. Seems a bit too much like PR speak to me. Let's get it on the table: are these chargers a fire hazard?
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#53I 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 recharg…
The fitbit tech is pretty primitive -- it looks like it only has a pedometer inside the device. It's probably why it isn't very accurate at tracking sleep. I've been using my fitbit for a few weeks, but it doesn't seem very accurate at all in general.
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you were basically saving $180 in exchange for a more polluted planet. Great exchange if I ever saw one.
Realisticlly, if you don't do it then a competitor will and not only will he pollute the planet, but drive you out of business with his cheaper units.
That's a shitty justification for causing irreparable harm simply because you need to make a buck.
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are the Apple bricks an acceptable replacement until you guys ship new ones?
USB power is standardized, so anything that plugs into the wall and has a USB port on the back should work fine. I regularly charge my phone with my Kindle charger and vice versa (and they even both use microUSB, so I can use the same wire too).
This is a real positive. My cell phone, my GPS and my in-car DAB radio all power from USB - I can charge and use them all with just one lead, instead of having a glovebox full of a Spaghetti Junction of different cables and connectors.
It also means that when one charger goes wrong, it's insanely cheap and easy to swap it out for a new one rather than having to look around for often expensive manufacturer-specific accessories.
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#56I've been a lurker on WakeMate, thinking I'd like one, but not yet taking the action to buy one.
However, because of their honesty and quick action on this issue, I will buy one now as soon as the charger issue is resolved.
@WakeMate: You will recover fine from this issue ... in fact I think you will end up in a better position because of how you are handling it. Good job!
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#57It'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.
At a place I worked a few years ago we had to individually retest every single unit of our products. This involved opening up packaging and repacking and reshrinkwrapping afterwards. In between unpacking and repacking there was testing and finding about 1/3 of them always had problems. Some boards could be fixed by diagnosing to the component level, replacing components and even resoldering incorrectly wired interboa…
darn those pesky environmental laws.
edit: oh wait! We'll just dump it in Asia instead! Yay!
Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
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Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
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Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate
#60For everyone bashing Chinese manufacturers, it's really unfair unless you qualify the statement. All of the big EMS companies have a significant presence in China (Celestica, Jabil, Flextronics, Sanmina-SCI) and Foxconn is part of a Taiwanese holding company. They, and many smaller EMS providers, will build exactly to spec and many of them are happy to do ODM/JDM work, too (ref: Quanta & Compal, the two biggest laptop ODMs and manufacturers in the world).
Where people get burned is when these don't perform a risk analysis while deciding on a hardware partner and end up going with some back room company that probably builds their stuff using components sourced from Shenzhen electronics malls. This isn't necessarily bad, but you get out what you put in, and if you're minimizing the time & money parts of the equation, the quality is likely to suffer.