1

I got home today and immediately smelled burnt plastic. I discovered that an Apple Watch charger burned and melted (every part of the charger is original Apple.) See included photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-AcoRIJWUrK5-6K8D8SvSjShFXAElYpv

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

I came up with only two possible options:

  1. Manufacturing error (too simple.)
  2. There’s a drawer right underneath where the Apple Watch charger was. In the drawer there’s an old unplugged wireless charging pad. The Apple charger was facing down with the coil and was right above the old pad. The separation was 3cm of hardwood.

Would it be possible that the Apple wireless charger started charging because it detected the coils of the old charging pad underneath and eventually melted down?

JRE
  • 67,678
  • 8
  • 104
  • 179
Jakub David
  • 11
  • 1
  • Just in the interest of energy saving, why was it left powered? Unplug it or use a powerstrip with a switch. – Solar Mike Nov 02 '22 at 20:48
  • 2
    It's "plausible" - it's not impossible - but someone would have to actually test it to find out. – user253751 Nov 02 '22 at 20:58
  • 2
    @SolarMike isn't that the allure of wireless charging? If you're going to plug something in every time you charge your watch, you may as well plug in the watch itself – user253751 Nov 02 '22 at 20:58
  • @user253751 no, it is about the wasted energy - so many devices left on standby needlessly. – Solar Mike Nov 02 '22 at 21:02
  • 4
    @SolarMike and if you are going to not leave your wireless charger on standby, you might as well not have one – user253751 Nov 02 '22 at 21:20
  • Impossible to find out why it failed any more. The lesson is not to leave electrical equipment unattended so they don't burn down your house. Especially chargers of any kind. – Justme Nov 03 '22 at 15:03

2 Answers2

3

Not likely at all.

The chargers have foreign object detection to prevent heating of random metal objects nearby. Also the thing that would have been heated would be the pad, not the watch charger.

The watch charger also has overload protection built in. So a failure in the watch charger is the most likely explanation.

You should bring the watch charger to Apple, they should be very interested in doing a failure analysis on it.

John D
  • 22,677
  • 1
  • 39
  • 56
  • 2
    Apple, failure analysis? They'd probably just say "sorry it broke, give us $500 for a new one" – user253751 Nov 02 '22 at 20:59
  • 1
    @user253751 I would think any reputable manufacturer including our friends in Cupertino would want to analyze any failure that could possibly cause a fire. They were very interested when I had a laptop battery (in the days when they were removable) start to bulge, heat and melt the plastic. They wanted it back immediately and exchanged it no questions asked. – John D Nov 02 '22 at 21:09
  • hmm, okay, but you don't interact with the ones in Cupertino, only the sales droids in your local Apple store. – user253751 Nov 02 '22 at 21:17
  • 1
    Ha! I have a (generic) wireless charger in the car. I had a metal disk as part of a phone case I bought (a small stand for standing it up), first time I put it on the charger, the disk got smoking hot very fast. Duh, eddy currents... Anyhow I tore the disk off, problem solved. TLDR, not every charger will avoid heating foreign objects apparently!!!! – Kyle B Nov 03 '22 at 00:04
1

I dont think it was charging the other wireless pad:

  1. It's too far: 3cm of wood + few centimetres of the air gap
  2. The coil of the charging pad would be Open. So, the charger wouldn't be able to detect it.

manufacturing error (too simple)

For how long did you have it? Have you left it in the sun too much? Was it stored near a heat source?

If you're no longer under warranty, you can open it up and see if the windings of the coil have a short somewhere? The insulation of the coper wires might have broken. But then, there should have been a current limiting function that should have opened the coil circuit.

Rahmany
  • 464
  • 2
  • 9