T-Mobile gift goes up in smoke, teaching everyone an important lesson

T-Mobile-branded flashlight | Image Credit – Parking-Ice-9206

Every once in a while, T-Mobile gives out free stuff as part of its Tuesdays program. The gifts are not exactly high-quality, which is often true of freebies. That’s why no one expects the products to feel luxe, but customers do assume that they are safe to use. One T-Mobile customer has cautioned that that might not always be the case.According to Reddit user Parking-Ice-9206, a flashlight that was handed out as a T-Mobile Tuesdays freebie smoked up randomly and its internal circuits started sparking. They say that they used a traditional wall outlet to charge the torch and it appears it had been working fine before the incident.

Our free T-Mobile Tuesday flashlight just stated smoking and the internal circuits where sparking.

We’ve had this plugged in to a traditional wall outlet since we got it and it just started smoking today. It appears there wasn’t sufficient quality control with these flashlights and since they were made in such significant quantity, it likely won’t be that ours is the only one to be faulty. Stay safe and replace it with a high quality one purchased elsewhere!

Parking-Ice-9206, Reddit user, December 2024

Parking-Ice-9206 believes that T-Mobile had a large number of these flashlights made and didn’t comply with quality control requirements. They appear to be talking about the flashlight that T-Mobile gave out in September. It’s a rechargeable flashlight with a 250mAh battery. T-Mobile likely distributed many of these and no one else has complained, suggesting this is a one-off issue and it potentially arose because instructions were not followed.

Apparently, T-Mobile instructed users to charge their flashlights for no more than 12 hours and not to keep them plugged in once the battery was full. It’s possible that Parking-Ice-9206 kept their flashlight constantly plugged in.

It was stated in the instructions to charge no more than something like 12 hours, can’t remember exactly BUT definitely not indefinitely.

International-Dark-5, Reddit user, December 2024

Granted, lithium batteries can’t be overcharged, but it’s possible that the flashlight features some other battery tech, such as Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH), and yes, NiMH cells can be overcharged.

Since this is an isolated event, we are inclined to think that the flashlight produced smoke because the owner didn’t read the instructions manual. Some users note that the flashlight felt so poorly made that they decided to never use it, but others say theirs has been working fine.

I use mine all the time and I love it. Had a second one I wish I didn’t give away.

Electronic_Ad5462, Reddit user, December 2024

The bottom line is that free stuff is always going to feel cheap but no company gets a pass on safety. That said, if you don’t follow the guidelines given by a company, the fault lies squarely with you.

Either way, it was nice of Parking-Ice-9206 to share the incident as it serves as a reminder that not all electronic items are safe to charge overnight.

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