Mobile phone charger safety hazards have aroused concern The mandatory national standard is being revised

Source: China Consumer Daily

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As some mobile phone manufacturers have successively cancelled the accompanying chargers in the name of environmental protection, the industry believes that a large market of 100 billion yuan will be derived from this. At the same time, some consumers complained to the "China Consumer Daily" reporter that the mobile phone charger they purchased was not easy to use and did not use; reports of fires caused by inferior mobile phone chargers were also frequently reported in the newspaper. This makes consumers suspicious of non-original chargers.

Multiple factors inspire the market

"Who will think that there are too many chargers, and mobile phone manufacturers do not have chargers for environmental protection is an excuse." Ms. Sun, a Beijing consumer, told the China Consumer Daily reporter that the use of mobile phones is becoming more and more extensive, and charging anytime and anywhere has become just needed. "For example, at home next to the sofa, next to the desk, at the head of the bed, in the kitchen, the office socket is plugged in the charger and data cable, one or two chargers are not enough." Ms. Sun said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at an Apple conference in October 2020 that it would remove the charger that came with the phone, a move that is said to help reduce carbon emissions. However, mobile phone manufacturers canceled the standard spare parts, but did not reduce the price of the product, nor did they have any subsidies for users, which caused an uproar. In May 2021, Fang of Beijing University of Chemical Technology and members of his group filed an application to the Dongcheng District People's Court of Beijing Municipality, requesting that Apple be ordered to deliver the mobile phone charger; bear the liability for breach of contract, pay a liquidated damages of 100 yuan and bear the litigation costs.

Although some people think that this move is more meaningful for rights protection, after Apple, mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei have also cancelled the chargers given away by some products. However, the plans of mobile phone manufacturers to cancel the gift charger are different. For example, the retail price of Huawei's non-charger products has dropped by 200 yuan compared with the version with charger and data cable; Xiaomi's Xiaomi 11 has launched a standard version (excluding chargers and data cables) and a kit version (including a gallium nitride charger worth 99 yuan), both priced at 3999 yuan.

On the one hand, some mobile phone manufacturers no longer come with chargers; on the other hand, due to new chargers such as fast charging and wireless, the user experience has been greatly improved, so that many consumers have replaced the old with a new one. According to the "2020 China Charger Market Research Report - Industry Operation Status and Development Trend Analysis", the most important product in the current mainland charger industry is the wired charger, and some insiders estimate that the scale of the wired charger market in 2022 is expected to reach the level of 100 billion yuan. However, with the gradual popularization of smart devices, "wireless + fast charging" will gradually become the first choice of consumers.

Security risks are of concern

At the same time as the rapid development of the market, the safety hazards of mobile phone chargers have also attracted widespread attention from all walks of life.

On the eve of "3.15" this year, the Shenzhen Municipal Consumer Commission issued a document saying that the number of fires caused by electrical appliances has long ranked first in the number of fire accidents in the mainland and needs to be paid great attention to.

Safety accidents caused by charger quality problems have not been uncommon. In August 2020, a resident of a shop in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, charged his mobile phone in bed, and the inferior charger equipment failed to ignite combustible materials such as bed sheets, and eventually the fire spread, and all 7 people living in the accommodation areas on the mezzanine, second and third floors of the shop were killed. In July 2021, the charger that was being charged in Mr. Li's home in Nanyang, Henan Province, suddenly exploded and caused a fire, from the small Mars to the whole house burning, taking only 3 minutes. On February 16 this year, a man in a community in Runzhou, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, was taking a lunch break at home when the charger of his mobile phone that was charging suddenly caught fire.

"There are many reasons for a phone charger fire." Li Pengzhong, an engineer in the electronic engineering department of Weikai Detection Technology Co., Ltd., explained in an interview with the "China Consumer Daily" reporter that for example, due to a single fault (such as a component short circuit, open circuit, etc.) or abnormal work (such as output overload, output short circuit, etc.), the temperature is too high, which will cause the charger to catch fire; the output transient voltage of the mobile phone charger is too high, breaking through the battery protection circuit on the mobile phone, and will also cause the battery on the mobile phone to catch fire or even explode. In addition, in order to reduce costs, some companies use materials for plastic shells, components and other parts that are not effectively flame retardant, which will also cause the rapid spread of fire.

At the same time, the quality sampling results of the relevant departments also show that the overall quality of charger products cannot be assured. According to the results of the 2020 quanzhou circulation field mobile phone power adapter (charger) commodity quality supervision and random inspection results released by the Quanzhou Municipal Market Supervision Bureau of Fujian Province, a total of 50 batches of mobile phone chargers were randomly inspected, and 20 batches were unqualified.

"When people search for mobile phone chargers through the e-commerce platform, they can find that the price difference is very large, from hundreds to a few yuan. The results of supervision and random inspections related to mobile phone chargers released by some provincial and municipal market supervision departments also show that the unqualified discovery rate is relatively high. Li Pengzhong said that the unqualified enterprises in the spot check are mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, and the unqualified projects mainly involve electrical insulation, interleaves, creepage distances, in-line equipment, abnormal heat resistance, electrical strength, termination of conductors, power terminal harassment voltage, radiation disturbance below 1GHz.

Mandatory national standards are being revised

Based on the above problems, many consumers have doubts about purchasing and using third-party brand mobile phone chargers.

Xing Jingfang, executive deputy secretary general of the Consumer Electronics Service Professional Committee of the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview with the China Consumer Daily reporter that in general, the charger should not be mixed. "First of all, the charging head should use the original, because the power of different charging heads is different, and the use of high-power charging heads to charge low-power products, although fast, will hurt the battery." The same is true for data cables, it is best to use the original data cable, which can avoid security risks. Xing Jingfang said.

However, although the original product is safer, its price is 1 times or even higher than that of third-party brands, so that many consumers turn to other brand products. Taking Apple's 20W fast charger as an example, its official website price is 149 yuan, while the third-party 20W charger price ranges from more than 40 yuan to more than 70 yuan.

"For third-party brand chargers, there is no need to talk about tiger color change." Li Pengzhong said that mobile phone chargers belong to the products within the scope of the national CCC mandatory catalog, and consumers should check whether the CCC logo is printed on the product and the outer packaging when purchasing. At the same time, although the brand concentration of the mobile phone charger industry is not high, there are already some well-known brands, so consumers should not blindly pursue low prices when purchasing, well-known brands have higher security, and the use experience may be better. In addition, due to the relationship between the fast charging protocol, there are currently some fast charging chargers that cannot be used with each other, consumers can use their mobile phone fast charging protocols, the power that needs to be charged, the preferred style, price point, etc. can also be purchased, and a product that supports a variety of fast charging protocols can also be selected to avoid limited future use.

Li Pengzhong revealed that the current mandatory national standard for mobile phone chargers GB4943.1-2011 "Information Technology Equipment Safety Part 1: General Requirements" Its new version of the mandatory national standard is being revised, and its corresponding international standard is IEC62368-1:2018.

Not long ago, Ding Lei, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggested to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that the standard port of the charger for intelligent electronic equipment should be unified to further reduce e-waste to help carbon neutrality. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in its reply to Ding Lei that with the rapid iteration of charging/data interfaces and charging technology, the current intelligent terminal market has formed a pattern dominated by USB-C interfaces and coexisting with multiple interfaces and charging technologies. After the user replaces the device, most of the original chargers and data cables are idle, resulting in huge waste. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will continue to promote the formulation of relevant national standards, promote the integration and unification of charging interfaces and technologies, improve the recycling rate of electrical and electronic products, and strive to promote the high-quality development of the consumer electronics industry. This reply is considered by the industry to be a good preparation for the next step of writing the unified charging interface standard content into the national standard of mobile phone related products.

Charger purchase "six notes"

Li Pengzhong, an engineer in the Electronic Engineering Department of Weikai Detection Technology Co., Ltd., reminds consumers that they should pay attention to the following points when purchasing mobile phone chargers:

1. The product packaging or shell should be checked for CCC markings.

2. Pay attention to the markings. Products sold in China require a simplified logo of Chinese and should contain at least the following information: the name, trademark or identification mark of the manufacturer or distributor; the model code or model specifications; the nature of the power supply; and the rated power supply voltage range.

3. According to the use environment, pay attention to the warning statement or logo of the product label, as well as the applicable altitude and climatic conditions.

4. Check the case material of the phone charger. The thin and brittle material is prone to damage to the shell, resulting in exposed dangerous voltages and creating a risk of electric shock.

5. Check whether the specifications of the mobile phone charger nameplate match the specifications of the terminal product to avoid damage to the terminal product due to the different specifications.

6. If it is an in-line power plug, it should conform to the style specified by the national standard GB/T1002, that is, the flake plug (cannot be cylindrical, square cylindrical and other forms). At the same time, the plug should not have a round hole and should not be in the shape of an "eight".