AirTag Removable Battery Sparks Child Safety Concerns

[WitchDrAsh2]

We live in a world void of personal responsibility...has 2020 taught you NOTHING?! It's ALWAYS someone else's fault for whatever stupid decision you make!

It's not about personal responsibility it's about poor design, if you build an item that is designed to be attached to items to help you find them, which means that the purchaser loses them at least enough to decide spending ~$45 on an AirTag + case is money well spent, and you decide to use a battery that has a reputation for seriously harming young children and animals, and then you decide to make a device that has tool-less entry, that's pretty damn negligent, especially when the decision to not include a safety screw is not a functional decision at all, it's purely aesthetic as you don't need regular access to the battery compartment ~once a year according to apple.

 

[Dented]

Stairs?

Have you never heard of a stairgate? Most parents are very aware of the risk of stairs to small children and put measures in place to protect their child.

There are two big differences with airtags - one, the risks are not going to be obvious to all parents given the hidden nature of the battery and expectation that it will stay inside the product, and two airtags by their very nature could be anywhere. That’s the whole point of them. They are attached to objects which get lost and turn up all over the place.

While the parent is going to be very aware of the stairs in their house, they may not even be aware that airtags exist at all, let alone exist in their house. Let’s say you pop round to mine for a cup of coffee while I’m minding the baby, you drop your keys on the side, baby loves playing with keys and grabs hold of them, I don’t see the harm because I don’t know what that new keychain of yours even is, you don’t see the harm because you don’t know babies, do you see how this could end up?

Read my post again. You are comparing a high risk event (motor vehicle death) with a super low risk event. Apple met reasonable guidelines. Things can ALWAYS be safer. That’s not an interesting argument. What’s the expected benefit vs cost to manufacture and utility?

Sorry to sound hackneyed but how can you possibly compare the cost of adding a single screw to benefit of saving even one life?

 

[sparkinstx]

I haven't gotten my AirTag yet (still waiting on Apple), so how easy is it for a toddler to get the battery out? The case I'm most familiar with is of Reese Hamsmith, the Lubbock toddler who died in a Houston hospital a month after she swallowed a button battery out of a remote control:

Lubbock family mourning toddler's loss after accidentally swallowing button battery

Reese Hamsmith was about 18 months old when she died following a more than month-long struggle to overcome what her family described as major damage caused by a remote control battery that she had apparently swallowed

www.lubbockonline.com

But in that case, the remote was found with the battery door open. It's not known whether the door popped open after the remote was dropped, or Reese somehow opened it. It seems that having to push down and twist the cover would alleviate these concerns.

 

[1258186]

Ok I’m going to take a bite at this: what kind of sweet (assuming you mean candy) resembles a battery? I have yet to see say Mars or Hershey’s come out with a candy that is marketed as resembling a battery. Perhaps I have missed that ad campaign? Besides show me a video of a toddler that that the finger strength to open the AirTag up and get at the battery.

Everything they can easily fit into their mouth is a sweet to a small child.

 

[jahsavi]

So I know in the past when Apple has been presented an issue like this they’ve given away something for free to solve the problem. I could see them making a keychain available to everyone that serves as a childproof lock for the device and increases its size past the toilet paper roll diameter rule. A simple snap together injection molded case wouldn’t cost them much. I picture a single item that clamshells together. The included ring seals it.

 

[gknewell]

I have two young children and if they end up eating a battery that’s on me.

 

[Euroamerican]

Speaking of dangerous: Did you all ever think about how dangerous petrol is? I mean, it's flammable and can spill and can catch fire.

Why would you ever bring such a dangerous substance into your home? What? They're trade-offs, good and bad to each decision?

So now knowing how these AirTags might be cause for concern, why would you EVER bring them into your home?

DON'T take ANY chances!

 

[innovationwho]

It’s simple. Don’t have children. They are parasites and ruin everything. You don’t have to have children.

 

[1258186]

**** Australia. This the same country that has criminalized it's citizens trying to return home from Covid infected areas.

That’s why they’ve had so few deaths compared to other countries like the US and Europe. It seems to me like Australia and New Zealand had the most responsible and intelligent response to this virus.

 

[sracer]

This is a 'gate worth investigating! Apple does all sorts of things to protect their customers from danger... curating the app store to ensure that no one is exposed to an app that might offend them. Nagging customers that there is an iOS update so that they don't fall behind to security issues... removing ports from their devices to protect customers from having to make a decision about which cable to buy... and yet...

...they produce a device that will allow toddlers to pop button batteries like Skittles!

Spoiler

😅

 

[return2sendai]

You can’t win. Apple makes products whose batteries can’t be replaced without a major toolkit and folk complain. Apple makes a product whose battery can be replaced with a simple twist, and kids eat them. Still, you’ll never lose your children in a shopping centre again!

 

[genovelle]

How did Tile get around this. Their tag might be bigger and therefor harder to swallow but I believe it is just as easy to replace the battery

Easier according to a comparison done last week.

 

[WitchDrAsh2]

Speaking of dangerous: Did you all ever think about how dangerous petrol is? I mean, it's flammable and can spill and can catch fire.

Why would you ever bring such a dangerous substance into your home? What? They're trade-offs, good and bad to each decision?

So now knowing how these AirTags might be cause for concern, why would you EVER bring them into your home?

DON'T take ANY chances!

I don't bring petrol into my home because of that very reason, and if I was it would be in the garage high up out of the way, anything that runs on petrol I'd want to use domestically (outside of the car) can be easily replaced with an electric version.

As for the AirTags until I can see how easy it is for the battery to fall out they aren't coming into my home, I don't consider potentially giving easy access to a watch battery to my kids, especially the 2 year old, outweighs my ability to recover my keys or wallet should I lose them.

 

[1258186]

It’s simple. Don’t have children. They are parasites and ruin everything. You don’t have to have children.

Or just don’t buy an AirTag until Apple have modified the design.

 

[genovelle]

This.

I’ll reiterate that many in this thread appear to be childless. In the real world, kids are a total wildcard and no matter how on the ball you are as a parent, it’s simply not possible to stay on top of them every second.

I was surprised how easy it was to pop the battery out of the airtag. Like another poster, my first thought was ‘I need to keep this away from my kid’.

What if a family member is at my house and gives my keys to the kid (a common thing that people give babies to play with) and aren’t aware of the attached airtag?

The entire device is barely larger than the battery. They could swallow the whole thing

 

[applefanboysince93]

I wonder if Australia sells Tiles then? My Tile pro you just slide the plastic cover of the battery off. No twisting motion. It would be much easier for a child to get the battery out.

 

[WitchDrAsh2]

The entire device is barely larger than the battery. They could swallow the whole thing

Swallowing the entire device is a ton safer than swallowing just the battery, the battery can cause major internal chemical burns and kill or seriously alter the life of the child involved should they survive, the worst case scenario for a swallowed AirTag is the child chokes, best case it just passes out and you have a fun time being able to track your kid around for 24 hours

 

[Manzanito]

The one time apple designs something with user replaceable, standard battery and they also get called out for that?!!

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

 

[Woyzeck]

I'm afraid people complaining about bad parenting don't get the point. You can't observe your kid 24x7 and there are regulations regarding batteries in most countries for good reasons. Just put as small screw over the battery compartment.

 

[1258186]

Swallowing the entire device is a ton safer than swallowing just the battery, the battery can cause major internal chemical burns and kill or seriously alter the life of the child involved should they survive, the worst case scenario for a swallowed AirTag is the child chokes, best case it just passes out and you have a fun time being able to track your kid around for 24 hours

Surely the worst case is they swallow the whole AirTag and choke to death. You should keep these tags well away from young children IMO.

 

[WitchDrAsh2]

The one time apple designs something with user replaceable, standard battery and they also get called out for that?!!

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

No, if you read it people aren't complaining the battery is replaceable, the complaint is their easily removable and could be removed by a toddler, or animal and swallowed cause serious internal organ damage. All Apple had to do was not chose a tool-less entry design and this would not be an issue. There is a reason most reputable manufacturers put screws on the backplates of devices that contain these watch type batteries.

 

[portland_bill]

I get the impression a lot of the negative comments here are from people who who haven’t had children or have the, ‘mine didn’t die so it’s your fault if yours do’ sort of attitude. I know I did everything I could with my children to make sure things were out of the way that could choke them but I know someone who lost a 10 month old to a tragic choking accident. The baby choked on a plastic temporary cuff link, the type you get on a new shirt to hold the sleeve together in its packaging. The truly tragic part is neither parent owned anything where this item could have fallen off. They think it came into the house on a shoe or carried completely randomly. So preventable and I know they’ve tried to get such items banned.

What you say is absolutely correct, mistakes and accidents happen and manufacturers have an obligation to make sure products are safe and warnings are clear.

Exactly.

There are some horrible posters here claiming to be parents when called out on some abhorrent posts.

What’s compelling about this story is it is a retailer who removed the item from stock pre-emptively; what made them have such serious concerns?

In answer to the other woe-is-Apple whining, the reason it is gaining traction is because inevitably an Apple product is going to be much more ubiquitous than Tile, by orders of magnitude. As a parent is is wholly irrelevant what my purchasing plans are in that case because there is a sure AF chance my kid is going to encounter one whether I have him on a leash or not.

 

[1258186]

I wonder if Australia sells Tiles then? My Tile pro you just slide the plastic cover of the battery off. No twisting motion. It would be much easier for a child to get the battery out.

In which case you should report them to the relevant authorities in Australia.

 

[WitchDrAsh2]

Surely the worst case is they swallow the whole AirTag and choke to death. You should keep these tags well away from young children IMO.

Absolutely, as I said that is the worst case scenario both for the AirTag and for the battery itself, but there's plenty of small devices a child can choke on in the house, but should the child swallow the AirTag and not choke, then clearly its a trip to the hospital, but it will probably just pass out on its own, the battery is a whole different level of bad though

 

[1258186]

Exactly.

There are some horrible posters here claiming to be parents when called out on some abhorrent posts.

What’s compelling about this story is it is a retailer who removed the item from stock pre-emptively; what made them have such serious concerns?

In answer to the other woe-is-Apple whining, the reason it is gaining traction is because inevitably an Apple product is going to be much more ubiquitous than Tile, by orders of magnitude. As a parent is is wholly irrelevant what my purchasing plans are in that case because there is a sure AF chance my kid is going to encounter one whether I have him on a leash or not.

I agree. It would seem that some people care more about Apple than child safety.