If you’ve got an EE Power Bar you should probably unplug it
EE has issued a recall of half a million of its EE Power Bars after discovering they pose a risk to customers
In a week seemingly fuelled by exploding batteries, EE has had to follow in the footsteps of Nvidia’s Shield Tablet recall by issuing a recall of its own. The company has had to issue a recall of half a million of its free portable EE Power Bar battery packs after a fault was found that puts its customers in danger of an exploding battery. Only specific batteries of the 1.5m Power Bars given away to date are affected and can be easily identified with an E1-06 marking.
The issue was identified last month after a medical student from Aberdeen University suffered burns to her hands and damage to her bedroom carpet after her EE Power Bar combusted due to overheating. EE has said it is “recalling batch E1-06 and request that customers stop using them and return their device to a local EE store at their earliest convenience.” You’ll have to wait until EE has conducted its investigations before you can get a replacement, however.
While giving away 1.5m EE Power Bars was certainly a nice gesture from the telecoms firm, especially in a day and age where smartphone batteries can barely last a day, we’re sure customers would probably value not being horrifically scalded over having a charged up smartphone or tablet. If your Power Bar isn’t marked E1-06 it sounds like you’re safe, with EE stating “We’ve not seen any issues of overheating with other batches and they meet all safety standards.” More details on the EE Power Recall is available here.
The EE Power Bar has a 4,500mAh Lithium-ion battery, which is enough to charge most smartphones more than once. If you’re looking for an alternative with higher capacity, and less chance of taking your face off, there are plenty of others available such as the Anker E1 that has a 5,200mAh capacity.
