Smartphones are officially 2016’s hoverboards.
Reports have been trickling in for weeks that battery cells in Samsung’s latest smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7, have been exploding, burning people and causing fires. The US Federal Aviation Administration has warned flyers not charge them on planes. Samsung had started a voluntary recall of the Galaxy Note 7 phone previously, but today (Sept. 15) is now finally issuing a recall requiring customers to return the affected phones to the company.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the regulatory body that is tasked with protecting Americans from ”unreasonable risks of injury or death,” said today that Samsung was recalling roughly 1 million of the phablets from US stores. “Samsung has received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the US, including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage,” the commission’s report stated.
To check if your Galaxy Note 7 (which Quartz had said was the best large phone on the market, before it started exploding) needs to be returned, check here on Samsung’s website, or from the US call 1-844-365-6197. But the CPSC pointed out that if you bought a Note 7 before today, it will need to be returned. For your trouble, you’ll be given a full refund, or a (non-exploding) Note 7 or other Samsung flagship smartphone, as well as a $25 gift card.
Bloomberg had recently estimated the cost of a recall to Samsung at as much as $1 billion, while Samsung said the amount was “heartbreaking.”