SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20240413-0465D-2147339818. Severity: No Incident, No Injury. Product: SASA WM-422 (SASA Tech Flashing LED Wireless Headphones). Incident: Wireless headset sold in children's section of Walmart is using defective lithium battery packs that are likely to explode or light on fire while on a child's head or while charging. The SASA Tech WM-422 headphones (SASA USA 525 7th Ave, New York, NY 10018) stopped charging properly within days of purchase (the charging status light on the headphones stopped lighting up while charging, and the amount of run time kept getting shorter and shorter, until reduced to mere minutes). Something was obviously wrong with this headset, so I checked Walmart's website for reviews to see if this was a common issue. Almost immediately, I noticed one review with photos which showed they had the battery pack in their headphones expanding so badly that it popped the headphone casing/earpiece apart, and it was quite obvious that their battery was imminently threatening to rupture. So, worried our headphones were suffering similarly, I carefully pulled the earpiece off of our headphones and discovered the same thing... what appears to be a very puffy, swelled up foil pack, that is clearly an inferior/defective lithium battery... it is plain to see that it has expanded/puffed up and is getting ready to pop/explode/ignite/etc. I'm no expert, but I did not notice any apparent physical or electronic protective elements to keep the battery safe (to prevent improper charging or punctures or help contain a rupture) like one sees with quality lithium batteries or well designed devices which contain them. This headset was only manufactured last year; it seems pretty wild for this to be happening alread