Fidget Spinners Are The New Hoverboard, And For All The Wrong Reasons

Fidget Spinners Are The New Hoverboard, And For All The Wrong Reasons

Screencap: WBRC

Remember hoverboards? That fun lil fad of ride-on battery-powered gizmos that kinda tailed off when they started blowing up?

Yeah, that’s fidget spinners now.

Remember. Hoverboards? Hoverboards that were

[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2016/04/there-is-now-one-legal-hoverboard-in-australia/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SAM_1677-410×231.jpg” title=”There Is Now One Legal ‘Hoverboard’ In Australia” excerpt=”‘Hoverboards’ were banned in Australia last month after countless incidents of fires, risk of electric shock and the product category making up two thirds of all product recalls on the ACCC website.”]

In Australia, two separate fidget spinners have been recalled by the ACCC in the past few months. Both have had unsecured battery compartments, which could end up with little kids either choking on the batteries or suffering chemical burns from them.

Here’s the thing, though: in the US, some shiny-LED and Bluetooth-connected fidget spinners are already exploding. We have regulations in Australia to prevent uncertified electronics being sold, but it still happens.

Please, if you’re buying a battery-powered fidget spinner, do your research — don’t just cheap out and buy the least expensive one you can find at the markets or off eBay. I find it crazy that I have to write a sentence like that in the first place, but you really don’t want to be mucking around with — flicking, spinning, dropping — a tiny gadget filled with untested batteries.

We should clarify: normal fidget spinners are just fine. I mean, they’re still fidget spinners, but they’re not going to blow one of your fingers off. It’s the battery-powered, ‘enhanced’ ones that you have to be wary of. In any case, you don’t really want something like this to happen to a little plastic metal and plastic gadget you’re flicking around between your fingers:

[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/06/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-fidget-spinners-are-now-exploding/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/q9gzn5xhxm1pondhvuwq.png” title=”We Regret To Inform You That Fidget Spinners Are Now Exploding” excerpt=”After transitioning from an obscure curiosity to a ubiquitous annoyance in record time, fidget spinners finally completed the 21st century novelty toy cycle this month, becoming something that could potentially burn down your house. According to local news reports, at least two Bluetooth-enabled spinners have now burst into flames while charging, may God have mercy on us all.”]


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