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AirTag Removable Battery Sparks Child Safety Concerns
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Blowback
macrumors 65816
I’ll take the bait: “ kids can use newly purchased HomeShopping Network Gensue (sic) knives to cut open AAA and AA batteries to expose and suckle/eat the salty and pasty interior. Congress critters havre scheduled hearings.”
Blowback
macrumors 65816
NO! Larger Marine/Boat batteries. Jeeze, its for the kids!!!!!
Certainly - one is in the business of manufacturing things and the other in designing things.
What's next, pull bolts from hardware stores because they are a "danger" to kids???
Australia: the only country that prohibits their own citizens from returning from India. Go figure!
Australia: the only country that prohibits their own citizens from returning from India. Go figure!
Shanghaichica
macrumors G5
Same battery used in the Samsung smart tag. However that is not as easy to open as the airtag. You need a tool to get in there.
Shanghaichica
macrumors G5
Well all the videos I’ve seen required a tool to open it. You can’t open it with your finger.
Samsung manual says you can use a fingernail, but I suppose that is a moot point. I can see that a small child is unlikely to open it as they probably neither have long enough fingernails nor fine enough motor skills. Then again, I don't really see how a small child will be able to apply precise two-figer pressure pressure+rotation while immobilizing the body of the AirTag to get them to open.
Shanghaichica
macrumors G5
They’ve been falling apart in people’s pockets. The size and shape of it makes it a choking risk at best.
This site has a video review of the airtag where they show you how they open “really easily” about halfway through. The comparison is to pill bottles, but it’s obvious in the video that it’s actually a much smaller movement involving less pressure.
I think even if you don’t care about kids getting hold of these, chances are that more than a few people are going to lose their stuff simply because these tags have lost their batteries over time. It’s a poor design whatever you think of the safety risk.
There is literally a single (!) report of an AirTag coming apart in someone's pocket, and you can find this report on this very subforum. And if you read that thread, there is some speculation that it might be to the user's incorrectly installing them in a third-party accessory.
As to choking hazard, yes, of course they are a choking hazard. As is any other small object. A key or a bottle cap are choking hazards. And let me tell you about those ballpen covers...
They‘ve literally been available for a week, if that. And the speculation about the case is just that, speculation. As we’ve learned from this thread, many people will suggest or believe anything rather than admit any failure on Apple’s part.
The ballpen covers that are all now made with holes to prevent them from becoming choking hazards? The ones that actually prove the rule that items can and should be redesigned with safety in mind?
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Its a case of fail safe. The device is to locate lost items which mean it could be attached to a bag or remote control.
The design of the tag is that it is not much bigger than a button cell, hence easy to swallow for kids.
One thing I think is a design flaw is that it does not have a loop because Apple chose looks and aftermarket loops over safety.
If there was a loop attached, it would be harder for a kid to swallow the tag. Hence doesn't fail safe.
Its not a case of failing to supervise, you obviously don't have kids.
Is that the only option? A simple small screw would make one aspect of the complaint go away.
The other would be adding a loop on the tag itself so that it can't be removed by a child. (Not an aftermarket keyring)
Ballpen and like have been designed over the years to at least attempt to failsafe - they have a hole in the end that allows inattentive adults who accidentally swallow it while chewing to still breathe 🙂
Exactly my point. They have been around for a week and now there are some people claiming (wrongfully btw.) that they "fall apart in pockets all the time", that they could be easily opened by a toddler and that they are a significant hazard to chill safety.
Hoel or not hole, I would speculate that due to it's size and shape, a toddler is much more likely to injest a pen cover than an AirTag. And a trip to ER is a trip to ER.
P.S. There are cases of children choking on a tampon. Which again, due to it's shape, size and accessibility is obviously a child safety hazard. What now, ban female hygiene products?
Looking at videos of them being opened, I do honestly believe that a toddler could open one easily. I know toddlers. And the CR2032 inside is a very real and proven hazard to child safety, without question.
Like many in this thread you’re just not understanding the relative severity of ingesting one of these batteries. A child who ingests a pen cover is going to be in some difficulty and may well require a trip to the ER, but thanks to the design changes they probably won’t suffocate and in all likelihood they’ll escape entirely unscathed.
A child who ingests one of these batteries probably won’t choke. If it happens quickly enough the parent may not even know its happened. By the time the child is in any distress and the parent is even thinking about the ER, that battery will already be burning a hole in the child from the inside, and doing irrepairable and potentially life limiting damage, all before the doctors even know what’s going on and can operate. It’s simply not comparable to a pen top.
Tampons are not routinely attached to all manner of everyday items. They’re also by necessity easy to insert and designed to expand and fill a space, so designing those features out would be impossible. Designing a battery cover that stays on with a screw or some other fixture, on the other hand, is child’s play.
It requires you to maintain strong pressure at two different points while applying angular torque and stabilizing the device in another hand. If a toddler is able to do that task easily, operating a screwdriver is not that far off. Frankly, opening a child safe pill bottle is easier since one needs to grip it, which is a simpler task than pushing.
I am very much aware of the danger. I just don’t share the opinion that an AirTag can be easily opened by a toddler, as I don’t believe they have the necessary motor skills to do so. And as an individual object, AirTags is not a bigger choking hazard IMO than other small objects you can find in a normal home.
If they added a screw, everybody would be complaining about there being a screw. And the battery cover is secured by a fixture, which is precisely why you need to do a fine motor manipulation to open one.
You squidge and turn it, slightly. A child could do that simply by accident, easily.
Just nonsense. If they added a screw it would simply be exactly like a billion other small-battery operated devices with a screw on cover and absolutely nobody would even mention it. And it doesn’t even have to be a screw - look at the sim tray on your iPhone, completely impossible to open without the insertion of a paperclip - why could Airtags not have implemented something similar?
LeeW
macrumors 601
What's your point? The issue here is not about where your AirTag is, the issue is knowing where your child is and what they are doing.
Reason077
macrumors 601
I can easily open my AirTag one handed, in about 1 second, by stabilising it with my forefinger and pressing/sliding on it with my thumb. I can see how the intent is to make it difficult to open accidentally (by a child or anyone else), but in reality, too little torque and pressure is required. It's much too easy to open, in my opinion, for something that only needs to be opened once a year.
You know where your child is in relation to you. You do not necessarily know where the airtag (could be anyone’s airtag) is in relation to your child. As for knowing exactly what the child is doing during every waking moment, forget it, never gonna happen, never has happened, welcome to reality.
Ok, that does sound concerning. I was under impression that it’s more difficult than that.