from Hacker News

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

by vidyesh on 6/13/25, 12:41 PM with 76 comments

  • by BrandoElFollito on 6/13/25, 2:55 PM

    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.

  • by dboreham on 6/13/25, 4:25 PM

    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".

  • by gnabgib on 6/13/25, 5:44 PM

    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

  • by js2 on 6/13/25, 3:35 PM

    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.

  • by Uninen on 6/13/25, 6:08 PM

    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.

  • by p1mrx on 6/13/25, 3:35 PM

    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.

  • by lightedman on 6/13/25, 3:10 PM

    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.

  • by TekMol on 6/13/25, 2:52 PM

    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.

  • by c0nsumer on 6/13/25, 3:07 PM

    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?

  • by whalesalad on 6/13/25, 2:58 PM

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

  • by eternityforest on 6/13/25, 6:10 PM

    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.

  • by tonymet on 6/13/25, 3:44 PM

    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.

  • by rsync on 6/14/25, 3:25 PM

    Were these devices UL listed?

  • by testfrequency on 6/13/25, 4:55 PM

    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.

  • by bufferoverflow on 6/13/25, 4:51 PM

    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.

  • by prng2021 on 6/13/25, 5:10 PM

    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?