Anker is recalling over 1.1M power banks due to fire and burn risks

https://www.theverge.com/news/686084/anker-recall-uscpsc-power-bank-battery-powercore-a1263

122•vidyesh•17h ago

Comments

TekMol•15h ago

Speaking about batteries ... is it dangerous to keep old phones around?

Could their batteries start to burn at some point? I mean when not using the phone at all, just keeping it in a drawer, turned off.

haunter•15h ago

Yes, the battery can become swollen and explode

Filligree•15h ago

Even when a battery is completely drained in an electrical sense, it retains a lot of chemical energy that can be released if things go wrong.

So an explosion is _less likely_ than for a battery actively in use, but not impossible. Lithium ion batteries aren’t collectibles.

WillAdams•14h ago

Yes, but they get used a lot in devices which folks consider to be collectible, e.g., Nintendo 3DS handhelds which were available in a sufficient variety of case designs that my son has at least 3....

dawnerd•14h ago

Even in things you wouldn't even think about. Tiny lithium batteries in all sorts of things.

potato3732842•14h ago

>Even when a battery is completely drained in an electrical sense, it retains a lot of chemical energy that can be released if things go wrong.

That's basically just saying "you can burn anything" but in words that are attrativce to the audiences biases.

Yeah, there's a bit more to go wrong with a dead battery than the plastic and whatnot device it's in but if it can't ignite itself it can't ignite itself and that's more or less the end of the story.

benterix•14h ago

Just a single anecdata: I bought a second-hand Xbox360 once[0] with two pads but use donly one for some months. One day I tried to use the other one but smelled the odor of burned plastic - for some reason the batteries caused a piece of the plastic melt.

This single event made me a bit more cautious about batteries in general. There are decades of no accidents and then unexpectedly something like this happens.

[0] Yest I still think Kinect was ahead of its time and I'm very sorry it got discontinued

rahimnathwani•13h ago

Were these alkaline batteries? Perhaps some conductive debris had caused a short circuit?

Reubachi•13h ago

Anecdotal story, but I don't "keep" old electronics anymore save for ones I know are in a fireproof container.

My attic and furnished top floor room adjacent to it can on a bad day get to 110 without the attic fan on. Very old NE colonial on a hill getting full sun from sunrise to sunset.

Items i cannot keep up there, as I have watched them explode or turn into puddles of goo: Aersol cans (oils, cleaners, sunscreen etc) Normal squeeze trigger bottles (IE, chemical cleaners, auto detailer) Tapes, adhesives Electronics

numpad0•12h ago

Li-ion batteries release something like 3x its advertised capacity when lit on fire. IOW, the label capacity is like 1/3rd its worth as fuel(don't do this, it releases stuffs like HF). That's not "you can burn anything".

1: pp.28. https://www.crepim.fr/DOCS_CLIENT/Aircraft-FAA-Energy%20Dens...

bradlys•14h ago

Burning isn’t as likely. But I had my old iPhone 4 or 5S battery swell and destroy itself that way while sitting in temperature controlled storage for a couple years.

I won’t be storing such items in combustible containers anymore even though the risk is pretty low and they mostly just swell.

Workaccount2•13h ago

No, it's not.

We have billions and billions of old devices with ancient batteries laying around, pretty much every house in the developed world has at least one, more likely multiple, lithium batteries laying around dead for years.

There is no need to do research or dig into it, the experiment has already been running for years in every house in the nation, and random battery fires are still rare enough to be news worthy. If you find a forbidden pillow (swelled battery pouch), dispose of it, but even those almost never convert to fire/explosion.

faeyanpiraat•13h ago

A more responsible answer would've been something along the lines of: There is a very small chance, but if you take the little time to responsibly dispose unused batteries every once in a while, then you do not even have to think about this.

Workaccount2•12h ago

The chance is already so low that it is firmly in the "you don't even have to think about it" category. Stove tops cause 160,000 home fires a year, killing 135 people annually, but when was the last time you felt unsettled when looking at your stove?

Lithium batteries are just prime fear porn for the media to run with. New and scary technology. But the statistics paint a wildly different picture.

cwillu•12h ago

No, that would be a less responsible answer, not more.

AzzyHN•13h ago

It's unlikely, but not impossible. What's more likely is that they'll start to expand

parsimo2010•13h ago

Lithium batteries mostly burn when the devices are drawing significant current below the safe cutoff voltage. You can safely discharge a battery to zero chemical energy with a slow draw. They make discharge devices for batteries in RC cars and planes for this. Once the battery has lost enough performance you safely drain it and then dispose of it (not in the landfill because the chemicals are still toxic)- you don't want to leave it partially charged in case it gets punctured in the disposal process.

Letting phone batteries drain naturally is pretty safe, because just leaving it in a low-power mode over time will cause it to self-drain at a pretty slow pace over several months. They should still be disposed of with electronics recycling so that the toxic stuff can be handled, but leaving a phone in a drawer is normally safe. Software bugs that try to turn the phone on into a high-power state right at the safety threshold are the biggest risks, or that you might try to turn it on yourself right at the safety threshold.

Phone fires are typically from software bugs that fail to cut power at the safety threshold, either while a user is trying to squeeze out the last few percent of battery, or if they are in luggage and presumably jostled and buttons keep getting pushed.

philjohn•13h ago

They're not called "spicy pillows" for nothing[1]

If they're not swelling, it's fine. If they're swelling, get them out of the house, preferaly into a metal bucket filled with sand.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spicypillows/

BrandoElFollito•15h ago

I usually buy Anker, mostly because of information like this one. It is sad but shit happens.

The noname battery at half the price may be great (even identical to the branded points, or better) or it may not be. If I do not know that it has a such serious flaw I do not want to use it.

myself248•14h ago

Furthermore, a smaller brand is likely long gone by the time such trouble turns up, so the recall never happens and you're on your own, my friend.

amelius•14h ago

Also, you will not hear about it in the news.

fhd2•14h ago

And even if you do, you might have trouble recognising the brand you hear about in the news. The cheap brand names seem to be mostly arbitrary strings of uppercase characters.

xattt•14h ago

The sad part is how most people will accept catastrophic device failure as a fact of life of their social standing, and feel like they have no recourse in being sold a dangerous product.

Zak•13h ago

In most cases they may have no recourse.

A bunch of these made-for-Amazon brands are just a middleman in China selling white label products from an unspecified manufacturer. Oberdorf v. Amazon means that Amazon can be sued in Pennsylvania, but does not establish liability for other jurisdictions.

The third-party seller is almost certainly liable, but they're a shell company in a country that is difficult for the legal systems of western countries to access. The manufacturer might have some liability, but it's difficult to establish exactly who that is, and they might reasonably claim that they're not selling a finished consumer product, so their only liability is to their customer the middleman.

I think making Amazon liable probably is the best solution, but the courts haven't done it for most of the USA, and I doubt congress will.

bunderbunder•10h ago

Though that starts to sound like an Onion headline: "'There's no way I can possibly avoid this,' says patron of the only store where this happens."

jollyllama•13h ago

Conversely, I bought one Anker product 13 years ago and it was DOA. Never bought from them again and I'm constantly surprised by the glowing opinion that people have had of them in the years since.

Toutouxc•13h ago

So what? You could get a DOA product from Apple, Xiaomi or Cisco. Send it back, get a new one. I got a DOA PlayStation 4 and an expensive LG monitor.

hbn•13h ago

You've been hearing glowing reviews from everyone else for 13 years and rather than the obvious explanation that you got a rare dud, you assume everyone's gaslit themselves into liking their products despite them failing at a high rate?

potato3732842•12h ago

A huge fraction, perhaps even the majority, of the "discussing consumer products" part of the internet is just people who overpaid for NiceStuff(TM) trying to gaslight everyone else into thinking it was a great value for money so that they can feel justified in their purchase.

So he's kind of on to something. But yeah, probably just got a rare dud.

accrual•13h ago

It makes sense, first impressions are important and your first experience with Anker wasn't a good one. I wouldn't be jumping to buy more of their products either.

On the other hand, I've only had good experiences so I tend to reach for Anker when I need a USB adapter, cable, or power bank. They're established enough that I know I have support if needed, and (IMO) their stuff is decent quality.

arp242•13h ago

Any brand for any type of product has the occasional DOA; it's very hard to completely prevent. The question is: 1) does it occur very frequently, and 2) do they rectify the situation ASAP (that is what warranty is for)?

esseph•12h ago

Most trusted brand I've found for cables, phone sized and laptop sized battery packs, etc.

I pay probably 30% more over the cheapie and know I'm actually getting what it says in the label, and that they are a long-lived reputable company that generally stands by their stuff.

It's one of the few things I buy off Amazon that I actually trust.

accelbred•11h ago

I've bought cables from them that dont work with their own chargers. Bought multiple of each so was not a one-off. Their 100W cables fail when used with chargers that can do 100W.

whalesalad•15h ago

I got the recall notice last night from AMZN. Don't even know where the battery is, I bought it in 2017.

c0nsumer•14h ago

Did any of you submit this successfully? I first tried in Firefox and it seemed to just not work when clicking the final submit. Then I tried again in Safari and the same, but the UI worked a little differently (a dropdown for the product model) and the submission still didn't work. So I tried one more time in Safari and it said the serial number was already submitted.

But never got an email affirming my submission so... I dunno.

This power bank is actually an old one that I don't really use anymore, but if I get a chance to get a replacement, I sure don't mind. So hopefully it went through?

senjin•13h ago

When I put in the serial number it said my batch was safe. I wonder what percent of batches don't actually apply to the recall

lightedman•14h ago

It may be good optics to issue the recall, but this is just the nature of most lithium chemistries as they age. Some of these packs are almost a decade old, well past warranty and well past the reasonable lifecycle of the cells in the first place. Most of these banks should have already hit recycling centers or landfills.

I don't keep lithium packs for more than a few years. Once they start showing signs of serious capacity loss and degradation they get replaced.

anondude24•14h ago

Lithium packs lose capacity or cease to hold a charge as they age. They aren't supposed to burn your house down.

js2•14h ago

Call to action: "Stop using the Anker PowerCore 10000 (model A1263) power banks immediately and contact the company for a free replacement".

> The recall covers about 1,158,000 units that were sold online through Amazon, Newegg, and eBay between June 2016 and December 2022. The affected batteries can be identified by the Anker logo engraved on the side with the model number A1263 printed on the bottom edge. However, Anker is only recalling units sold in the US with qualifying serial numbers. To check if yours is included, you’ll need to visit Anker’s website:

https://www.anker.com/a1263-recall-form

See article for additional details, but that's the important part.

FirmwareBurner•14h ago

>However, Anker is only recalling units sold in the US

So the customers outside the US can go F themselves and burn in a fire? Or have they sold those faulty units only in the US. Because I doubt there's any difference between the US and EU powerbanks SKUs.

atrus•13h ago

It depends. US and EU could be been manufactured in a different facility and the process error only occurred in the us factory.

FirmwareBurner•12h ago

Why would EU and US SKU manufacturing take place in different fabs? What's different about them. If you look the units share the same regulatory marks for all regions.

macspoofing•13h ago

>Because I doubt there's any difference betreuen a US and EU powerbank.

Based on what? I can absolutely see them having different suppliers. But even if they have the same supplier, it could be the case that only the lots destined for US had the defect.

Sytten•13h ago

EU IDK but for Canada I am 99% certain it is the exact same units. I am guessing that it's mostly that the US is litigious so they want to avoid getting sued. I will probably get rid of my mine out of precaution.

runjake•11h ago

Calm down. This is not worth getting worked up about.

Contact Anker. There could be regulatory or logistical or other reasons why they aren't rolling this out outside of the US (yet).

KomoD•11h ago

> This is not worth getting worked up about.

Customers buying a product, being told it that might burn your house down and then being told you're not eligible for recall because you don't live in a very specific part of the world is not worth getting worked up about?

runjake•7h ago

> Customers buying a product, being told it that might burn your house down and then being told you're not eligible for recall because you don't live in a very specific part of the world is not worth getting worked up about?

Yes, correct. Let's look at the facts.

- Anker states this is a US model.

- They sold about 1.2 million units of this model.

- Of those units, a reported 19 units have caught fire.

- If my math is correct, that equates to 0.00001% of the units sold.

- This is a USB battery, not a pacemaker. If you have grave concerns, stop using it until Anker swaps it out.

- It cost me $25 over 6 years ago.

That said, I have one of the affected units and called the Anker number in the recall notice. While I was on call with Anker, I asked them if people outside the US could swap them and their answer boiled down to "Probably, but you may need to pay extra for shipping."

Do you have one of these units? Did you contact Anker and were told "no"?

If not, what are you getting worked up about?

p1mrx•14h ago

These are currently selling for under $20 on eBay. There may be an opportunity to buy and recall these for a small profit, though personally I don't think it's worth the effort/risk.

dawnerd•14h ago

They should be starting to come down from ebay once the recall system picks them up. You're not allowed to sell recalled items.

curiousObject•13h ago

That would encourage sellers to mail a potential fire hazard, unless it’s clarified that there’s no risk when it’s not connected.

But upvoted for helping everyone realize that’s a problem

Havoc•13h ago

Post office probably not too stoked about this plan either

altairprime•12h ago

First one I found on eBay was definitely recalled; reported with link and screenshot to accelerate their response.

yencabulator•9h ago

https://www.anker.com/a1263-recall-form

> To proceed with the recall request, you must provide valid order information.

tonymet•14h ago

how are you guys storing your lithium batteries? They are practically all over my house and garage, due to all the appplications. Ryobi, camera equipment, laptops, gadgets, backup batteries, radio batteries. My house is just covered with portable fire-starters.

birn559•14h ago

They even let people fly with their Laptops. From what I know batteries with stiff casing that can't be easily penetrated are quite safe.

I only buy from big brands though. Works never buy no name stuff.

Zak•13h ago

Reports of laptop batteries exploding while operating or charging weren't infrequent 15-20 years ago.

Mechanical abuse isn't the only way to get a Li-ion fire. Failing to properly balance cells in series is electrical abuse with two likely outcomes, both of which can cause thermal runaway (fire/explosion):

The normal operating range for Li-ion cells is 2.7-4.2V. Discharging one below 2.7V causes chemical breakdown inside the cell that results in an internal short circuit. Attempting to charge an internally-shorted cell causes substantial heat generation, potentially leading to thermal runaway.

The other outcome is reverse charging, which occurs during discharge. If one cell in a series is performing substantially worse than others, or the charging circuit doesn't ensure the entire series is in the same state of charge, it can actually drop below zero volts, then get charged in reverse by the other cells. This rapidly leads to bad chemistry and thermal runaway.

It's simple to prevent both of these problems by having the battery management system monitor the voltage of every cell individually, but that costs more.

tonymet•13h ago

the issue is that even big brands have no name cells in them. I've got dozens of earbuds, controllers, lights with embedded cells and who knows where they were produced.

it's impossible to control the whole supply chain as a consumer

dboreham•13h ago

Possibly interesting note on this: Amazon runs a query/report on your historical purchases vs recalls. If it finds a hit they display a message on your orders history page saying that something you ordered has been subject to a recall.

Years ago an air fryer I bought there was recalled. We sent the unit off and received a replacement. Nevertheless Amazon kept displaying the message. So I ignore it. It's there very day.

After seeing this article I wondered if I'd bought an affected unit so went to the Amazon order history page. Still displaying the message saying I have a recalled item. But if I click that message it displays two of the Anker batteries (and the Air Fryer, still).

Lesson is that you should click that link once in a while..

And Jeff if you're reading: make the message say "A new item has been added to your recall list".

Havoc•13h ago

Yup. They sent me a recall for a chocolate half a year later. They clearly think I have a vast amount of self-control.

bufferoverflow•13h ago

I have so many big batteries in the house, it's scary. I've been thinking of building a fireproof enclosure for them from rockwool or ceramic fiber.

Our big batteries, other than the EV in the garage, are from the e-foil, they are like 40lbs, lots of energy.

tshaddox•13h ago

In the RC model aircraft community a common recommendation is to create safe containers to charge large lipo batteries in. People often charge their batteries in old barbecue grills, toolboxes, sandboxes, etc.

bufferoverflow•7h ago

I think they can explode even when not charging.

testfrequency•13h ago

Side note: The Verge website is unbearable anymore to view, I don’t even bother loading it.

Everything is either pay walled, requires login, or the off chance I can see the article in full - there are so many trackers built into everything that my ad blocker breaks links. Case in point, I can’t even view the official Anker recall page.

It’s really been a shame to watch the demise of The Verge over the years.

KomoD•10h ago

> Everything is either pay walled, requires login, or the off chance I can see the article in full - there are so many trackers built into everything that my ad blocker breaks links. Case in point, I can’t even view the official Anker recall page.

Welcome to the internet, sadly this is what it has become. I always run articles through archive.is because they're a nightmare/impossible to view otherwise.

It gets even worse when you're on mobile, shit popping up everywhere constantly, ads in the middle of articles, auto playing video ads, etc.

I even pay ~$26/mo for a subscription to a local news site and they STILL show me ads.

prng2021•12h ago

They have tons of products like this. Does that mean they somehow designed all the others that completely avoids the inherent fire risk of lithium ion batteries?

0xffff2•12h ago

It probably means that there's an issue with the battery cells or circuitry used in this specific model that isn't present in other models.

gnabgib•12h ago

There's been a few Anker Power Bank recalls:

- (this) A1263/PowerCore 10K https://www.anker.com/a1263-recall

- A1642|A1647|A1652/Anker 334 MagGo/PowerCore 10k partial recall in 2024 https://www.anker.com/a1642-a1647-a1652-recall

- A1366/535 Power Bank/PowerCore 20K in 2023 https://www.anker.com/a1366-recall

out-of-ideas•8h ago

appreciate it, had me wonder if any more were and came across: https://us.anker.com/pages/product-recalls

from the page:

  - Anker PowerCore 10000 power bank -Recalled in June, 2025
  - Anker 334 MagGo Battery (PowerCore 10K)/Anker Power Bank/Anker MagGo Power Bank - Recalled in September, 2024
  - Anker 321 Power Bank (PowerCore 5K) - Recalled in June, 2024
  - Anker 535 Power Bank (PowerCore 20K) - Recalled in February, 2023

edit: forever formatting

Uninen•11h ago

I used to not care that much about fire risks of cheap electric devices (apart from lithium batteries like here because they seem to be inherently volatile/dangerous) until one day few years back when a faulty wire of a $3 iPhone charger from AliExpress caught fire on my desk.

I probably wouldn't have noticed it until way too late if my cat hadn't happened to sleep next to it on the same table. He had a sudden scare of the fire and jumped quickly off the table. It looked so weird that I went and looked what he was afraid of and saw flames coming of the half-melted charger and the wire. The desk was full of paper and junk, it was seconds away from catching fire in a way that I probably couldn't put down anymore as I live in a flat and don't own a fire estinquisher. (We only have a fire blanket in the kitchen but that wouldn't have helped much.)

I will never save few bucks from charger wires or chargers or power banks like these ever again -- it's just not worth it!

That all said, don't have any experience from Anker devices myself but in my experience you typically get what you pay for when buying cheap.

OJFord•11h ago

Anker's not really 'buying cheap' IMO, it sort of started that way but quickly got a good reputation and now it's a household name and a brand that will do a recall.

Buying cheap would be the drop-shipped 'brands' that exist for all of 5 minutes. TNAHEK or FGUYJ or similar unpronounceable all-caps nonsense. (Or 'GoodLife' or 'SuccessDream' or something.)

KomoD•10h ago

Anker isn't some cheap no name brand.

bunderbunder•10h ago

Why not buy a fire extinguisher? I've been a renter most my life, and I've never lived a place where the landlord supplied fire extinguishers, but they've also never complained about me supplying my own.

Uninen•8h ago

That's a good question. This might be some kind of a "fireplace delusion" [1] kind of a thing, I've never really even considered it. I've never seen anyone have a fire extinguisher in a flat here in Finland, that might also be one reason. I guess that wouldn't be the worst purchase to make but I'd still much rather try not to put myself in a situation where I'd need one :)

[1]: https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-fireplace-delusion

eternityforest•11h ago

Wasn't expecting to ever see a fire risk with Anker! I'll probably still trust them in the future though unless there's some kind of pattern.

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