Snap is recalling and refunding every drone it ever sold

autotldr Bot , 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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Snap and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission say you should “immediately stop using the Pixy Flying Camera, remove the battery and stop charging it” now that there have been four reports of the battery bulging, one fire, and one “minor injury.”

Then, you can get a full refund for the entire drone and / or any batteries you own — sounds like we’re talking at least $185 back to you, unless you bought it on sale.

Diving into drones was an intriguing move for the company, which had also dabbled with hardware via its Snap Spectacles.

Those, too, were largely about having a different perspective on capturing video for the platform, though the company’s also been looking into AR.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel once suggested the market for drones was bigger than that for video-capturing glasses, but that was before the Pixy came out.

I believe this is the first time we’ve heard sales numbers for the Pixy; the CPSC reports that the company sold “about 71,000” units, though the number of drones is fewer since that includes batteries sold separately.

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The original article contains 396 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 54%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

Hotdogman , 5 months ago

Oh snap! That’s a lot of refunds!

YaxPasaj , 5 months ago

They should have used Flatpak.

XEAL , 5 months ago

Motherfu-

VampyreOfNazareth , 5 months ago

Nice

Zak , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Yes, the entire drone is being recalled, not just the removable battery, likely because Snap doesn’t make those batteries anymore.

Using proprietary batteries is bad, and this is one reason why. A 14500 (AA-size Li-ion) probably would have worked this application and slightly exceeds their battery’s 3.3 Wh capacity.

gedaliyah , 5 months ago

Shame. I never even heard about this. Like the spectacles, it seems like a neat idea, slightly before it’s time, and poorly rolled out. Such a creative company, but what a sad track record for project launches.