Aardvark DailyNew Zealand's longest-running online daily news and commentary publication, now in its 25th year. The opinion pieces presented here are not purported to be fact but reasonable effort is made to ensure accuracy.Content copyright © 1995 - 2019 to Bruce Simpson (aka Aardvark), the logo was kindly created for Aardvark Daily by the folks at aardvark.co.uk |
Please visit the sponsor! |
Guess what? I'm getting a brand new washing machine, for free!
No, I didn't win a raffle or become the beneficiary of some act of kindness, Samsung are replacing my 4-year-old washing machine with my choice of their latest model equivalents.
Why are they doing this?
Because it turns out that my old machine is one of the "Little Lucifer" models which have been responsible for quite a few fires around the country.
Apparently, if you use them to capacity, water can splash up into the bits where the electrickery is found and that can cause the magic smoke (with subsequent flames) to be released in a rather dangerous fashion.
It would seem that in light of the problems with this model of washing machine and their new Note 7 mobile phone, Samsung might want to invest in a fire extinguisher company as a strategy for risk management.
But Samsung aren't the only company having problems with batteries.
A while back, Microsoft Surface owners had issues with some of the batteries used in these tablets.
Apparently they stopped delivering much in the way of useful operational time after a few months -- effectively leaving owners tied to a wall socket. Given that many people buy a tablet for the portability aspect, this was obviously not a good thing.
After some head-scratching, Microsoft came up with a software patch that appears to have mostly solved that issue but now they face another battery issue.
The Surface was shipped with batteries from two different manufacturers -- depending on the batch. To date, the batch containing LG-sourced batteries was free from the debilitating problems that affected the other brand -- but that has now changed.
Surface users are complaining now that the LG-brand batteries simply won't take any charge at all. Even though the system tells them that the batteries have been fully charged, withdrawing the mains power causes an almost immediate shutdown.
What the?
Are we pushing the limits of lithium polymer battery technology too hard?
Is the relentless need to squeeze even more power into and out of these little bags of chemicals producing systems that just are no longer reliable or safe?
Battery life is something consumers often consider to be a major factor in their purchasing decision so it's only natural that manufacturers will opt to use whatever battery claims to deliver the most watt/hours per cubic centimetre. Sadly, this powerlust seems to come at the cost of safety and long-term durability.
Exactly why we're seeing a spate of battery-related issues in our portable electronics may not be as simple as it seems however.
One suggestion I've heard mooted is that it's not the batteries which are at fault -- it's the charging systems.
Most lithium battery charger circuits use "off the shelf" charge-control chips that have been around for several years. The suggestion I'm hearing in tech-circles is that these chips are not actually best-suited to the charging of some of the newer cells with slightly different chemistry and characteristics.
When you're trying to squeeze the maximum number of joules into a small space, any unwanted deviation from the perfect charge current/voltage can produce catastrophe and maybe these chips are simply a generation behind the batteries being used -- thus creating the problems we're starting to see.
One of the problems I see with the relentless pace of tech development and the rush to get these new technologies to market is that it can create some very dangerous situations.
Self drive cars are a great example -- how do we know they're safe enough until they've been widely used and the bugs have been worked out of them?
Fifty years ago, even the most complex consumer technology was very simple by comparison with today's stuff. It was pretty easy to work out the kinks in something that was largely mechanical in nature or which had circuitry with just a few valves or transistors.
By comparison, even a relatively simple thing like our old Samsung washing machine has more computing power than the Apollo 11 spacecraft yet it's rolled out with far fewer checks and testing -- even though it has the potential to cause significantly greater risk to person and property.
Are we moving too fast?
Please visit the sponsor! |
Have your say in the Aardvark Forums.
Beware The Alternative Energy Scammers
The Great "Run Your Car On Water" Scam