As big technology advocates, we hate nothing more than scaremongering. Technology is great and should be adopted as much as possible. With that said, phone chargers catching fire is a very real risk.
It'll never happen to me! Well it did this morning in west Dublin, fire caused by phone charger over heating. Beware pic.twitter.com/dU813mgqZL
— Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) February 22, 2015
A quick look at Google shows you that phone chargers are the leading suspects in house fires every month. With more plugs in our houses being occupied with phone chargers every year, Firemole is possibly the most important gadget you could buy.
Why are phone chargers catching fire?
There are two main schools of thought on how phone chargers cause house fires. The predominant one is people using unofficial chargers. I stopped using these a few years ago simply because I thought they charged too slowly. It turns out that unofficial chargers are cheaper because they don’t go through really important safety tests. They then overheat and malfunction and cause fires, just like the one the Dublin Fire Brigade showed above.
There are also fears that even official chargers can cause fires when used incorrectly. These fires have been linked with chargers being left on beds leading to overheating. With our houses being full of chargers, a Cork company has invented a gadget to make chargers much safer.
Reduce charger-related house fires with Firemole
Spending years working as a qualified electrician, Seán Ó Tuama saw the damage that phone chargers catching fire can cause. According to Seán, “there has been huge growth in the electronic and electrical markets over the last number of years, but there has not been the proportional growth in safety devices to protect people from faulty, ageing or counterfeit equipment.” This led him to design and develop Firemole.
Firemole is a small device that you can easily fit to any electrical charger or device with a flat surface. Firemole’s focus is fire prevention, versus fire detection which is what traditional smoke detectors do. Once a charger or device fitted with a Firemole reaches a temperature of 54°C an alarm sounds. The designers chose this temperature as our skin can be damaged from just 50°C
When the alarm sounds, it’s time to unplug the device Firemole is connected to. It’s probably a good idea to chuck it too.
The people behind Firemole
We’re particularly taken with Firemole because it’s an Irish gadget. The Cork-based company started designed the device in late-2016 and now plan their Irish and UK launch in July 2017. You can order the Firemole from their website for €19.99, get three for €45 or ten for €119.99.
