[HN Gopher] What's Hiding Inside Haribo's Power Bank and Headpho...
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What's Hiding Inside Haribo's Power Bank and Headphones?
Author : rozenmd
Score : 204 points
Date : 2025-11-27 17:23 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lumafield.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lumafield.com)
| curiousObject wrote:
| Why these batteries got all the attention -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45322135
| krackers wrote:
| The more interesting thing is that they were actually pulled. Did
| the manufacturer send a recall notice? (And if so why didn't they
| send a statement). I can't imagine Amazon themselves taking any
| action since they allow other junk to stay up
| mberger wrote:
| Gummy bears?
| tclancy wrote:
| My indulgent aunt once let me get a five pound bag of them from
| one of those Scoop Your Own candy stations. I left them in the
| rear window of her VW Rabbit for the better part of a summer
| day and they melted into a horrible blob that scarred me for
| life. Not sure why this Gummi Bear post is giving me flashbacks
| to that.
|
| But yes, those folks. Check the product shot in the article for
| their logo.
| runnr_az wrote:
| Good thing you didn't try and drink the hot gummy bear
| juice... turns out, molten sugar is surprisingly brutal
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| a struggling company will often license their name without much
| fuss
| nunez wrote:
| struggling to the tune EUR2B/yr
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I stick to Anker for cables, batteries and chargers. I'm sure
| they've had their own issues but everything I've bought feels
| well made. The only one I've had an issue with was a USB-C to
| everything else adaptor which weirdly stopped working after a
| week or two. I was surprised to find that their support was based
| in the UK (Cardiff if memory serves) and very efficiently
| processed a return and replacement.
|
| I've watched Big Clive's videos for too long to trust no-name
| Chinese things with anything involving mains potential or energy
| storage.
| LunicLynx wrote:
| I bought myself an anker powerbank because of all the rave
| around them. Mine behaves incredibly strange. Charged in
| seconds, then not containing half a phone charge. For a 20.000
| mAh this was really disappointing. Probably a one of but still
| leaves the impression that this was looked at because it ruined
| the price for others.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| That's obviously a dud cell. Contact support if it's not
| several years old.
| Melonai wrote:
| Had a tangential issue with an Anker power bank (screen was
| sometimes showing bogus charge essentially), and can
| confirm Anker E-Mail support is pretty good in my
| experience, they sent me a second unit (even though the
| first is still functional and I still use it just fine to
| this day), free of charge after a brief exchange.
|
| Might be worth a shot.
| LunicLynx wrote:
| Okay thanks, I'll try!
| ycombinete wrote:
| They recently did a massive recall on a line of power banks
| for being fire hazards. Make sure it's not one of them.
| trothamel wrote:
| They also did a recall on speakers (under their soundcore
| subbrand) for the same thing. I'm not sure if this is good
| or bad - they proactively contacted me to let me know about
| the recall.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Yeah same. I've bought Anker power adapters, cables, power
| banks, headphones. All of them have done incredibly well.
| They're not immune to issues, because sometimes their suppliers
| let them down. But if that happens they'll replace your product
| for free.
| vardump wrote:
| IKEA 45W and 65W Sjoss chargers and braided cables are also
| good. Pretty cheap too. There's also a 30W charger, but it has
| cheaper, presumably poorer quality components.
|
| Those chargers have nice specs too. They support PD PPS
| (programmable power supply).
| avian wrote:
| > but everything I've bought feels well made
|
| No comment on Anker quality, but the "feels well made" feeling
| is something that has been known and gamed (for example, by
| including dummy weights in devices) in the hardware industry
| since forever. It is relatively unrelated to things you as a
| consumer may actually care about (like adherence to safety
| standards or amount of engineering effort put into the
| longevity of a product).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > No comment on Anker quality, but the "feels well made"
| feeling is something that has been known and gamed (for
| example, by including dummy weights in devices) in the
| hardware industry since forever.
|
| Yup but for Anker devices you have a lot of nerds picking
| them apart on Youtube. If Anker were to engage in shady
| practices, the uproar and resulting shitstorm would be on a
| scale that could _tank_ the entire company.
|
| IMHO, Anker is one of the last remaining (funny, the company
| isn't that old) "brands" in the original sense.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| That said, the last two Anker power pack models I've bought
| were both recalled for sometimes exploding/melting down in
| use. Once I'll give them, but twice? In a row?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| You could also count recalls as a higher quality signal:
| QA, people testing, how they handle the recall &
| replacement, etc. Way better than not hearing anything
| because nobody's looking. I'm skeptical Anker is doing
| crazy-unique things with their manufacturing, vs. an OEM
| manufacturer cutting corners to save pennies.
| e_y_ wrote:
| A lot of big manufacturers have had recalls (for things
| like laptop batteries, vehicle batteries, the infamous
| Hoverboards, etc) so I wonder what Anker's batting
| average is compared to others. It's clearly a hard
| problem and squeezing in the level of density that
| customers expect means potentially thinner safety
| margins.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| If they had better QA (and QC) they wouldn't need a
| recall.
| abawany wrote:
| One of mine bought in 2017 was recalled and replaced,
| which impressed me: how many of the word salad brands of
| today would even be around to handle a recall if their
| devices decide to spontaneously combust?
| hinkley wrote:
| 14 years old is sadly pretty good by tech standards.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| I'll be the voice of dissent here. I've heard nonstop praise
| for Anker online. Bought a couple keyboards and adapters from
| them and they all failed within a year. My wife got a mobile
| battery from them and that ended up dying in under a year as
| well. I'd be willing to write off one bad item, but I've had no
| good experiences and the pattern is clear to me.
| water-data-dude wrote:
| Did you buy them off Amazon, or from a reputable reseller? I
| ask because Amazon mixes third party inventory together with
| first party inventory, so it's impossible to tell if you're
| getting a genuine product or a counterfeit.
| havaloc wrote:
| They are on the way of ending commingling, thankfully.
|
| https://www.geekwire.com/2025/after-years-of-backlash-
| amazon...
| Groxx wrote:
| this is great news, but:
|
| > _To avoid commingling, sellers have long had the option
| to apply a unique, seller-specific Amazon barcode --
| known as an FNSKU (Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping
| Unit) -- to every product. This ensures their inventory
| is tracked and shipped separately._
|
| ... is that really all that was necessary all along? I
| can see that being a problem for, like, 10 cents worth of
| stuff, but a lot of the commingling complaints have been
| around expensive items. It 's not zero cost of course,
| but for your average $30+ thing it doesn't seem very
| difficult to justify.
| auxym wrote:
| Unless things have changed, Amazon is the official and only
| reseller for Anker products in Canada and probably many
| other countries.
| pengaru wrote:
| It's mediocre trash. But in relative terms... the bar is so
| low now and the market flooded with randomly named fly-by-
| night operators that even mediocre trash stands out as
| exceptional just by existing long enough with a consistently
| spelled brand name to not be perceived as a fly-by-night
| operator.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I still have an old Anker 20,000 mAh power bank that works
| fine. Might not have the same charge ability as it once had but
| I can still get 2-3 charges out of it for a Pixel 8 Pro. Has 4
| LED's to display charge level and a button that flashes them
| when you want to check status.
|
| I bought a UGREEN bank on a recommendation and it was a buggy
| mess. It discharged more than it should when charging and when
| plugged in it rapidly charged to 100% which was sus. Graphical
| menu was weird and displayed ambiguous graphic messages to
| avoid text. These things feel like time bombs.
| rchard2scout wrote:
| I also still have an old 20,000 mAh Anker power bank, and my
| only issue with it is that the micro-USB charging port is
| starting to wear out. For the rest, it's still brilliant, and
| it holds its charge very well while in storage.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I have an older Anker power bank that would be considered
| giant by today's standards. I bought it for the specific
| feature of it having a 2.4mm power port that can be switched
| between 6v and 12v. It was one of the very few power banks
| that I've seen with this feature.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| I call Anker the Oxo (kitchen gadget company) of the tech
| world. Does Oxo make the absolute best gadgets or tools? Nope.
| But they are among the best designed and made and typically the
| best bang for your buck hitting above its weight. Anker is
| similar, it may not be the absolute best of the best but for
| the money you get solid design and build and rarely would you
| purchase something you need and be disappointed.
| harrall wrote:
| Not that it changes your point but the funny thing is that
| Anker was a no name Chinese brand on Amazon like UGREEN back
| then.
|
| And like UGREEN, it was noticeably better than the other
| Chinese no-name brands.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I've had a couple issues, but their support replaced them
| pretty quickly no questions asked
| dcrazy wrote:
| The same Anker that recalled over a million devices across five
| product lines this June?
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/06/30/anker-power-...
| mook wrote:
| There's widespread issues with power banks in China, with a
| new CCC certification required, and recently something about
| upgraded enforcement because previously certified devices
| having been found to have issues.
|
| I'd rather go with a brand that does proper costly recalls
| over one that just lets everybody keep the dangerous products
| around.
| cheema33 wrote:
| The difference here is that Anker will recall a faulty
| product. Lesser known brands will not. If you know of another
| brand that has a better safety and reliability record, please
| share.
| hinkley wrote:
| Toyota is the largest automaker, still has a lot of gravitas,
| and they've had some recalls that were doozies.
|
| The two are not mutually exclusive. Unless they become a
| pattern.
| Dxtros wrote:
| It may be their branding but anker has gained some trust
| despite some issues... I ordered a battery bank that was
| recalled, sent it back for a new one. Then a few months later
| the replacement battery bank was recalled which is not great.
| That being said I do trust they will recall a protect and
| notify me when there are issues with their products which is
| reassuring.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| I have an Anker powerbank. It will no longer charge using the
| USB-C port. I have an older Belkin that is certainly less
| stylish but has a higher capacity and still works perfectly,
| including charging via USB-C, so I'm not inclined to buy Anker
| again.
|
| Of course neither of us has a lot of first hand data so it's
| hard to draw meaningful conclusions.
| hinkley wrote:
| Have you checked the warranty?
| charcircuit wrote:
| Has anyone reported issues with this battery, from what I've seen
| online everyone has been happy with its performance. Maybe the
| uneveness called out by the article is not enough to matter. Not
| following the industry standard is not necessarily the tipping
| point of everything going wrong.
| arcfour wrote:
| "Well the batteries haven't caught on fire _yet_. I 'm sure
| they're fine, despite the serious manufacturing defects that
| increase the risk of a fire substantially."
|
| You realize they stopped selling them, right? They don't do
| this for "nothing to worry about."
| charcircuit wrote:
| >increase the risk of a fire substantially
|
| The article doesn't state by how much it increased.
|
| >You realize they stopped selling them, right?
|
| I don't think Amazon is an authority on battery safety and
| are airing on the side of safety than making an actual
| judgements on the safety of it.
| tclancy wrote:
| No they are definitely not. You're completely correct! They
| are, instead, an authority on what might get their asses
| sued to the moon and back and apparently found the cost/
| benefit of selling this popular product to be negative. Any
| ideas what might cause that?
| chihuahua wrote:
| In the past, Amazon didn't care about dangerous products
| until lots of houses had been burned down by them, so if
| they ban a product it must be _really_ bad.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That lower than .5 mm margin on those edges may not have
| caused fires - yet - but if nothing is done about it then
| one day they will. That's an accident waiting to happen.
| amazingman wrote:
| > The article doesn't state by how much it increased.
|
| This is a really strange response. How would _you_ go about
| quantifying this when you don 't care to add to their
| profit by buying a bunch of them, and can't get the product
| anyway because it was pulled for safety reasons?
| charcircuit wrote:
| >when you don't care to add to their profit
|
| I was going to, but it was delisted. I didn't expect that
| to happen so I was waiting until the next time I was
| going to travel before ordering it.
|
| In regards to quantifying the risk I would expect there
| to have been prior research on the dangers of lithium ion
| batteries that could be referenced due to it being such a
| common battery chemistry.
| frumiousirc wrote:
| I'm curious how the cost of performing these CT scans compared to
| the profit reaped by Haribo while the batteries were selling.
| nhf wrote:
| Lumafield sells CT scanners, so these posts serve double duty
| as advertising for their capabilities. Given how many times
| their previous posts have been shared I'm sure the ROI is
| great.
| Y444 wrote:
| I love the summary at the top. Cool thing to have.
| metalman wrote:
| not sure what is more interesting, the detailed information on
| lithium battery construction, or how they got a CT(cat) scanner,
| or the idea of having an industrial cat scanner around. those
| batteries were bizarely cheap and there was prior suggestion that
| these(others) were actualy fake with empty space or filler, which
| isn't the case, and all in all they just need to up the precision
| of there automated processes. nice piece of journalism.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> how they got a CT(cat) scanner_
|
| I think they are becoming a lot more prevalent in labs, these
| days. They aren't the monster devices that many of us may be
| (unfortunately) familiar with.
| butvacuum wrote:
| They can be a lot smaller when neither dose nor movement is a
| factor in imaging.
| notpushkin wrote:
| > how they got a CT(cat) scanner
|
| Lumafield _is_ a CT company: https://www.lumafield.com/
| Carioca wrote:
| Yup! And their whole social media "thing" is doing these
| kinds of on-topic analysis of (mostly consumer) devices
| Den_VR wrote:
| Good use of an advertising budget, much better than classic
| ads.
| meatmanek wrote:
| One of the few advertising campaigns that I'll happily
| read/watch, despite recognizing that it's all
| advertisement.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Batteries that undercut the market price have serious flaws...
| who would have thought!
| baiwl wrote:
| This reminds me of when pvs-studio would post every single
| analysis they would make of popular C++ projects. It was a fun
| novelty back in the day. Just like these scans, which now are
| boring and overplayed.
| raphman wrote:
| FWIW, the Haribo _charger_ seems to be rather well made:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT_t5nvFcoY (26:50, by ZeroBrain,
| a German YouTuber that disassembles electronic devices)
| arp242 wrote:
| How or why does a candy company decide to electronics? That's the
| mystery I need an answer to. What's next, Durex pizzas?
| piyuv wrote:
| Duracell gummies (AA battery shaped) would be pretty cool
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > How or why does a candy company decide to electronics? That's
| the mystery I need an answer to.
|
| A few years ago, Haribo was in a serious crisis [1] - they
| didn't catch up on competition when it comes to new trends such
| as vegan candy, and a few years prior they had dismissed their
| marketing face Thomas Gottschank [2]. The closure of the Saxony
| plant also seriously soured relations with local politicians
| [3]. Some of all of that is attributed to the death of Hans
| Riegel in 2013 [4].
|
| I don't have any particular insights into Haribo, but what I do
| know is that (especially struggling) brands tend to go towards
| making money off of the brand by licensing out rights... some
| of such deals tend to go well for everyone involved (see e.g.
| anything Lego touches), some run okay-ish (e.g. that's how you
| end with a "CAT" rugged phone made by Bullitt [5] - the things
| were rugged, but the performance was abysmal), and some end up
| in a massive clusterfuck like the Haribo batteries.
|
| [1] https://taz.de/Haribo-Werk-im-Osten-vor-Aus/!5755771/
|
| [2] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute/thomas-gottschalk-
| tren...
|
| [3] https://www.rnd.de/promis/werksschliessung-in-sachsen-
| thomas...
|
| [4] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/haribo-chef-
| ha...
|
| [5] https://www.heise.de/news/Outdoor-Smartphones-Bullitt-
| Group-...
| sva_ wrote:
| It is just a generic battery you can buy e.g. in South Korea
| (for about $10 to $15) and some company got the license from
| Haribo to slap their branding on it through some crowdfunding
| project.
| dboreham wrote:
| Durex adhesive tape?
| slater wrote:
| Durex socks.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| FWIW, I have one of the Haribo products, the 65W 3-port GaN
| charger. No battery to fail. I've run the charger standard
| enumeration test with a ct-3 and it supports everything except
| for VOOC. I've also load tested it with an adjustable usb load
| tester and it matches all the specs as advertised. It seems like
| they probably use the same controller as the Anker 3 port
| charger, but would need to see the teardowns. Otherwise, I'll
| continue to recommend it.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'd be interested to know if a headphone battery _can_ suffer
| thermal runaway.
|
| If the surface area to volume ratio is high enough, however badly
| it is made doesn't matter - it's not gonna catch fire anyway.
|
| If that's the case, there is no safety issue with the headphones
| - a 0.5mm safety margin either end of a battery which is only 6mm
| long is insane anyway - and I don't fault the engineers for
| looking for other ways to get equivalent safety without
| compromising in capacity.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It smelled fishy right from the start.
|
| It is obvious that energy to weight ratio is one of the most
| important characteristic of power banks. Reputable manufacturers
| will optimize for this, and if they are particularly good at it,
| they can ask for a premium.
|
| If a generic powerbank beats the big names, sells for cheaper and
| is associated with a brand that has no reason to be associated
| with powerbanks, then it is very likely that the weight savings
| come from omitting something important rather than an optimized
| design. If the specs are true that is.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I think a lot of the quality issues described in the article
| could be fixed without substantially affecting the weight
| though, couldn't they?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Probably, however, it makes me think of the Galaxy Note 7
| problem. For those who don't remember, these phones had a
| battery problem that can cause them to catch fire, resulting
| in one of the most infamous smartphone recall campaign.
|
| The cause of the problem is that the electrodes were pinched
| inside the pouch cell, in some cases causing a short circuit
| and a fire. To put it simply, it was too tight in there.
|
| So here it is possible that these defects are a result of
| having too small safety margins for how these batteries are
| manufactured.
|
| In addition, they only focused on the electrode alignment
| issue, because it is visible on their CT scans, they didn't
| study the electronics, the casing, the connectors, etc...
| There may be some other issues there.
| josephg wrote:
| Yeah. I remember seeing the circuit board for official Xbox
| controllers vs cheap 3rd party ones. The official controllers
| had about 10x as many components. I don't know what all that
| stuff does, but I'm sure it all contributes to the controllers
| feeling and working better.
|
| I wonder the same thing about chargers. I've recently moved
| from a 3rd party charger for my camera batteries I got on
| amazon to an official Sony charger. The 3rd party charger
| seemed to work great - but it was practically weightless. The
| Sony charger is clearly a way more complex (and more expensive)
| product. I don't know if all that complexity is actually worth
| it. What does it all do? But I assume so.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I would avoid anything exceed 100 watt-hours (which this does) as
| you can't fly with it. I do a lot of backocuntry bike trips so
| flying isn't the primary concern, but I'm not going to own
| multiples. Anker and other reputable brands tend to design around
| these type of use-cases which helps.
| asimpleusecase wrote:
| I've seen airline training videos about in flight battery fires.
| But I've never considered the risk of ear buds catching on fire.
| Normally, you should feel them heating up before they catch but
| they might just blow, that would be very sore. Also if you're
| sleeping with buds in you could end up with a fire before you
| woke up.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| The thought of a runaway thermal reaction in a cell that's
| sitting in your ear, albeit a small one, is pretty sobering.
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