from Hacker News

Amazon warns Alexa Echo Buds earphones pose overheating safety risk

by pbhowmic on 7/15/20, 5:56 PM with 54 comments

• by cactus2093 on 7/15/20, 7:11 PM

  Seems pretty mundane, the headphones can overheat while charging in rare cases and it's fixed with a software update. It's not like they're burning people's ears during regular use or catching on fire.

  Lots of comments taking the opportunity to complain about Amazon the storefront, and issues with fake reviews, counterfeiting, etc. but that doesn't really have anything to do with this story. Amazon's hardware generally has a pretty decent reputation, from Kindle and Echo that have been huge successes and basically created brand new product categories, to amazon basics cables and batteries and whatnot that are reliable at a good price.

• by bearjaws on 7/15/20, 6:27 PM

  $129 and lesser quality than most ear buds, this isn't even a new design, there's dozens of ear buds that look similar.

• by josefresco on 7/15/20, 6:34 PM

  Meanwhile I couldn't be happier with my $16 earbuds that I got for free. Sound quality isn't great but for watching streaming video, podcasts or a quick workout they're fantastic. If I lose them or they break, no big deal.

• by venki80 on 7/15/20, 6:30 PM

  Amazon is the new Walmart. Low quality products. Increasingly the top brands aren't even available on the site and all you have is Chinese no-name crap.

• by m3kw9 on 7/15/20, 7:25 PM

  Is there a phrase from ear drums melting?

• by MegaDeKay on 7/15/20, 6:44 PM

  This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "My ears are burning."

• by orthecreedence on 7/15/20, 9:26 PM

  I guess playing sound while simultaneously recording and broadcasting all your conversations back to the mothership is CPU intensive. Who knew.