Rant #1,583: A Hunk, a Hunk of Burning Smartphone

I guess my dental work yesterday was a success.

I am still not used to the crown I have; it feels somewhat like an anchor in my mouth.

But it does not hurt, it just feels like there is a foreign object in my mouth, and it will probably feel that way for a few days, until I get used to it. Once I do, it will be like I was born with this thing right where it is.

Whew, I am glad that is over.

Anyway, something else happened yesterday that sounded the alarm in my house, and quite nearly sounded off the fire alarm.

Like most of us today, I have one of those darned smartphones at the ready. I wish we, as a society, weren't tuned into such devices like we are, but due to my wife's insistence, I have one, but unlike most other people in society, I don't use it to take pictures or store music.

I actually use it as a phone.

Anyway, as I do at least once a day, late yesterday afternoon I decided to charge the thing up. I hooked it up to its wire, plugged it into the wall, and I figured that over a period of time, it would charge to 100 percent and that would be the end of that.

Lately, I have noticed that the charging time has been getting longer and longer, and some people have told me that the battery's life is running out, and that it was time for a new phone.

I have had the phone for a few years, so I felt that what they said was probably correct ... but I wasn't going to get a new phone until the thing was unchargeable and/or unusable.

So I continued to use the same phone, charged it up each morning as best I could, but the charging times were becoming a bit ridiculous, well over an hour to charge a phone that already had a good amount of juice in it.

Well, I did the same thing yesterday, only charging the phone in the late afternoon because I was at home while I normally was at work.

Well, my wife came home from work, made dinner for herself and the two men in the family, and I figured that after we ate, the phone would be done charging and that would be that.

I went into my bedroom, where the charging was being done, and I smelled a burning odor. I ran over to where the phone was charging, looked at my phone, and at over an hour being charged, it read just 35 percent--or several percent less than when I plugged it into the wall.

I immediately ripped the wire out of the phone, and I slightly burned my hand. The end tip of the wire, the part that goes into the phone, was black, and I noticed that the case that I have the phone in was also slightly charred at the opening on the bottom.

I ripped the plug out of the wall, and noticed that the plug below it--which is used for our air conditioner--was also slightly charred.

Evidently, the wire was the culprit in all the charging problems I had had with the phone, and this time, we could have had a real problem had I come into the room a few minutes after I did.

I checked out the phone, it appeared to be fine, and I have another wire from my tablet that I can use to charge the phone, and it worked to perfection, did it speedily, so again, I have no real need to get another phone. The case is slightly burnt on the bottom, but I simply have to remove the case to charge the phone, and everything is copacetic.

So at least in this instance, the charging wire had simply given out, not the phone battery, and if not for some luck, I guess, we could have had a major fire in our home.

We have all heard of smartphones exploding without warning, and we kind of think that these are isolated instances, and these things cannot happen to us.

But while my smartphone didn't explode, the wire charging it basically imploded, so these things can happen.

Now that I know the warning signs, I think I know what to do so it never happens again, but it was a bit scary for a minute or two yesterday.

These phones are wonders of modern technology, but they can also potentially be problematic, and I hope that I nipped this problem in the bud before it can potentially do more harm than good.

And I thought that my dental work was going to be the big problem yesterday ... .