Product
JBL Charge 3
Category
Audio Device
Report number
20200229-DD851-2147374566
Ownership age
About 16 months to failure (from purchase date when reported)
Failure type
Overheating
Incident narrative
SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200229-DD851-2147374566. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: JBL Charge3 (The unit is a JBL Charge3 bluetooth speaker). Incident: I was home with my girlfriend, when she smelled smoke. I went upstairs to find my bluetooth speaker was very hot and smoking profusedly. At the time it had been plugged in for approximately an hour to the charger supplied by the manufacturer. I unplugged the speaker and ran with it downstairs, and put it outside. The speaker got hot enough to melt the polyurathane coating on my wood floor. I reported the issue to the manufacturer the following morning. I brought the speaker and charger to my work the next day so that I could document the issue and sent that info to the manufacturer. I requested that they inspect the unit with me, so far they have declined to do so. In the pictures I am submitting you can observe the swelling of the unit near the battery, the polyurathane melted to the unit's base, and the damage done to the floor. Thermal damage to the unit is also visible. It is my belief that in unplugging and removing the unit I was able to avoid a much more damaging and dangerous situation.
Official report number: 20200229-DD851-2147374566. Search that ID on SaferProducts.gov or match it in the CPSC public database export to verify this record.