A new report proposes that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 may have faced fire issues due to an overly aggressive design. After watching the story unfold, the hardware engineers at Instrumental decided to investigate the issue further. Their curiosity was primarily driven by Samsung’s varying responses to the issues, which seemed to vary by the day and even contradict the company’s steps to manage the situation.
Samsung’s explanations all dealt with the battery itself, leading consumers to believe that the issue was a manufacturing issue with the battery, not the phone. However, Instrumental noted that if the issue was with a flaw in the battery, then only the battery should have needed to be reworked, rather than the entire device line requiring a shutdown and recall.
With that in mind, Instrumental acquired a Galaxy Note 7 and carefully began to take apart the phone and look for clues. The findings are interesting, as the group came to the conclusion that the problem wasn’t a problem with a flawed battery, but was instead an issue with the design of the entire phone. In its pursuit of a more compressed, yet powerful, device, Samsung became too aggressive. Over time or in certain circumstances, the battery could compress to the point that the positive and negative layers would come into contact, leading to an explosion.
Instrumental goes into more detail in its full report (follow the source link), but the takeaway is that Samsung’s drive to innovate led to a device that was ultimately unsafe. Though Samsung has yet to confirm the findings, this situation could lead to a change in the industry. If the tight design was indeed the cause, it may lead manufacturers to take more time to consider the effects of their rush to make devices thinner and more powerful than before.
We’ll keep you updated as Samsung continues to deal with the Galaxy Note 7 situation.
Source: Instrumental
