Owners of a recalled Galaxy Note7 need to power it down, because the first replacement program failed. On September 2, 2016, Samsung said it had found a battery cell issue, stopped sales, and would replace phones already in customers’ hands. The Android history hub places this recall on the platform timeline.
The Galaxy Note7 recall is the battery-safety record of Samsung’s 2016 stop-sale, and of the January 23, 2017 finding that the batteries caused the incidents. The September 2, 2016 statement reported 35 cases globally as of September 1, a battery cell issue, a sales stop, and a voluntary replacement. On October 10, 2016, Samsung asked partners worldwide to stop sales and exchanges, and told owners of an original or replacement Note7 to power the phone down. The October 11 disclosure said production had halted. On October 13, the U.S. company expanded the voluntary recall to both groups and named September 15, 2016 as the original U.S. recall. The January 23 graphic separates Battery A, from the first recall, and Battery B, from the second. A quality note the same day lists an 8-Point Battery Safety Check from the cell through shipment.
| Record | What Samsung printed | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| September 2, 2016 statement | 35 cases as of September 1. A battery cell issue. Sales stopped. A voluntary replacement. | This is the first public stop. |
| October 10, 2016 U.S. statement | Stop sales and exchanges worldwide. Power down an original or replacement Note7. | Replacement phones were inside the stop. |
| October 11, 2016 disclosure | Production halted after the decision to stop sales. | Factory output stopped the next dated filing. |
| October 13, 2016 U.S. notice | Recall expanded to original and replacement phones. September 15, 2016 named as the original U.S. recall. | Both populations sit in the U.S. remedy. |
| January 23, 2017 graphic and quality note | Batteries caused the incidents. Separate faults in Battery A and Battery B. An 8-point check. | The cell finding and the new process share a date. |
What happened during the 2016 recall?
Samsung stopped Galaxy Note7 sales on September 2, 2016, offered replacements, and by mid-October had halted production and expanded the U.S. recall to those replacements.
The September 2 statement is the start of the public record. Samsung said that, as of September 1, 35 cases had been reported globally, that an investigation had found a battery cell issue, and that sales had stopped because customer safety was the priority. Customers who already had a Note7 would get a voluntary replacement over the coming weeks. The statement does not give a shipment total, an injury count, or a cell capacity.
The October pages then split the next actions by date and by document:
The October 10, 2016 U.S. statement says Samsung was working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on recently reported cases. It says Samsung would ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges while that investigation continued. Owners of an original Galaxy Note7 or a replacement Galaxy Note7 were told to power down and use the remedies then available, including a refund at the place of purchase.
The October 11, 2016 investor disclosure says Samsung Electronics halted production of the Galaxy Note 7, following the decision to stop sales, for consumer safety. It says the filing answers a disclosure inquiry from the Korea Exchange dated October 10, 2016. The disclosure uses a production halt. It does not add a later sales calendar.
The October 13, 2016 U.S. notice says Samsung Electronics America expanded the voluntary recall to all original and replacement Galaxy Note7 devices sold or exchanged in the United States before and after the original recall on September 15, 2016. It says that decision followed a stop of production, sale, and exchange on October 10. From 3:00 p.m. ET on October 13, the notice offered an exchange for another Samsung smartphone or a refund, under a program it says the CPSC approved. Tim Baxter, then president and chief operating officer of Samsung Electronics America, asked owners of an original or replacement Note7 to power down and use those remedies.
Those three October documents are easy to flatten into one day. The U.S. statement and the U.S. expansion notice put the stop of production, sale, and exchange on October 10. The investor filing is dated October 11 and describes the production halt as following the sales decision. This page keeps both printed dates.
Why did the first replacement program fail to close the issue?
The first replacement program failed because the phones offered as the remedy carried a different battery fault, which Samsung later labeled Battery B.
On September 2, the remedy was a new Note7. On October 10, Samsung stopped exchanges and told owners of replacement phones to power them down. On October 13, the U.S. recall grew to include those replacement devices. The January 23, 2017 graphic supplies the cell reason for that reversal. It says Battery A, from the first recall, and Battery B, from the second recall, had separate factors that originated in each battery.
| Battery | Dominant failure mode | Prevention published the same day |
|---|---|---|
| Battery A, first recall | Negative electrode deflected in the upper-right corner. The tip was in the curve. | Samsung’s 8-Point Battery Safety Check, published the same day for the path from component to shipment. |
| Battery B, second recall | Welding burrs on the positive electrode penetrated the insulation tape and the separator, so the positive tab met the negative electrode. A number of batteries were missing insulation tape. | The same day’s 8-point check, plus multi-layer rules for design, hardware, and charging algorithms. |
The September 2 remedy was a replacement phone. The January graphic places Battery A in the first recall and Battery B in the second, and it gives Battery B a different fault: welding burrs through the insulation tape and the separator, plus missing insulation tape on a number of cells. The October 10 statement then stopped exchanges and told replacement owners to power down. The second recall is in the record because that replacement population had its own cell fault.
The September 2 statement says Samsung was inspecting with its suppliers to identify affected batteries. The January graphic does not print supplier names. This page stays with Battery A and Battery B, which are the labels the graphic uses.
What did the 2017 investigation find?
Battery A from the first recall and Battery B from the second recall failed in different places inside the cell.
Samsung’s January 23, 2017 press-conference notice says the company announced the cause in Seoul that day. DJ Koh, president of the mobile communications business, presented the results with executives from UL, Exponent, and TUV Rheinland: Sajeev Jesudas of UL, Kevin White of Exponent, and Holger Kunz of TUV Rheinland. The notice says those groups had run their own investigations. The cell detail is on the companion page, Galaxy Note7: What We Discovered, also dated January 23, 2017.
That page says Samsung examined hardware, software, and related processes, and that Samsung’s investigation and the three outside investigations concluded that the batteries caused the Note7 incidents. The graphic says a short circuit within the battery may occur when damage to the separator lets the positive and negative electrodes meet inside the jellyroll. It then splits the affected batteries into two populations.
Battery A, from the first recall, has a main cause and an additional factor. The main cause is a negative electrode deflected in the upper-right corner of the battery. The normal comparison shows an electrode that is not deflected. The additional factor is the tip of the negative electrode, incorrectly located in the curve. The abnormal caption says that tip was “not the planar area.” The normal caption says the tip “is correctly located within the planar arena.” The two captions do not share a final word. The geometry they draw is the same contrast: curve on the fault side, flat run on the normal side.
Battery B, from the second recall, has its own main cause. High welding burrs on the positive electrode penetrated the insulation tape and the separator, which then caused direct contact between the positive tab and the negative electrode. The normal drawing shows the positive tab appropriately attached to the positive electrode. The additional factor is that a number of batteries were missing insulation tape, set against batteries with sufficient insulation tape. The graphic does not print how many cells were in that group.
The layers named on the Battery B drawing are the negative electrode, the separator, the insulation tape, the positive tab, and the positive electrode. The structure panel above both batteries labels the positive tab, the negative tab, the separator, the jellyroll, the pouch, the positive electrode, and the negative electrode. Those are the parts the short-circuit sentence depends on: a damaged separator is what lets the two electrodes meet.
The press-conference notice does not, in its own paragraphs, restate the electrode deflection or the welding burrs. The graphic page does. Reading one without the other leaves the cause as an announcement and the mechanism as a picture. Together they answer the question the October recall had left open: the replacement phones were in the recall because their battery population had a separate fault.
How did Samsung change its battery safety process?
On January 23, 2017, Samsung published an 8-Point Battery Safety Check and a multi-layer safety protocol, and it named an outside battery advisory group.
The quality-assurance note from that day says the 8-point check addresses safety from the component level to the assembly and shipment of devices. Five tests are described as enhanced: Durability Test, Visual Inspection, X-Ray Test, Disassembling Test, and the △OCT Test. Three are described as newly applied: Charge and Discharge Test, TVOC Test, and Accelerated Usage Test. The note prints those names and does not add pass limits, sample sizes, or temperatures.
The same note describes multi-layer safety measures for every element of the device: the overall design and the materials, the hardware strength and capabilities, and improved software algorithms for safer battery charging temperature, current, and duration. Again, the note names the variables and does not print a threshold for any of them.
Samsung also formed a battery advisory group of external advisers. The note names Clare Grey, professor of chemistry at the University of Cambridge; Gerbrand Ceder, professor of materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley; Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University; and Toru Amazutsumi, CEO of Amaz Techno-consultant. The stated job of the group is a clear and objective view of battery safety and innovation.
Samsung said it hoped the case would improve lithium-ion battery safety for the wider industry, and that it would share the lessons. The press-conference notice ties the same 8-point check, the multi-layer measures, and the advisory group to what the company learned from the investigation.
The next flagship’s public design story on this site is the Galaxy S8 Infinity Display. That page is about the screen shape that followed. It is a different record from the eight battery checks.
What should ordinary phone owners learn from the recall?
Power down an original Galaxy Note7 or a replacement Galaxy Note7, and use the remedy Samsung printed in October 2016.
Rule of thumb. If the phone is an original Galaxy Note7 or a replacement Galaxy Note7, power it down before you open a battery menu. Samsung’s October 10, 2016 statement applies that instruction to both, which are the Battery A and Battery B populations the later graphic separates.
The October 13 notice then offers two paths for U.S. owners: exchange the Note7 for another Samsung smartphone, or receive a refund, under the program it says the CPSC approved. The October 10 statement also points owners to a refund at the place of purchase. The same statement prints the address samsung.com/us/note7recall. That address returned HTTP 404 on October 18, 2026, so it is a 2016 instruction line, not a live page to follow today. The action that remains on the page Samsung still hosts is the one in the October 10 and October 13 statements: power the phone down, and use the exchange or refund those notices describe.
The Android battery drain and performance guide walks through battery usage on a phone you are still using. A Note7 named in the October 2016 statements needs the power-down step above before any of those settings.
The model name has to stay narrow. “Galaxy Note” is a family. This recall, in the documents above, is the original Note7 and the replacement Note7 from 2016. A newer Galaxy phone is a different product, and these pages do not recall it.
Why does the Galaxy Note7 crisis still matter today?
It still matters because Samsung’s own 2017 graphic shows that the first replacement carried a second battery fault, and because the 8-point check is the process Samsung printed in response.
Phone batteries store a lot of energy in a thin pouch. The Note7 record shows where that pouch failed in two different builds: a deflected negative electrode in Battery A, and welding burrs plus missing insulation tape in Battery B. The short-circuit sentence on the graphic is the shared mechanism. The faults that damaged the separator were not shared. A recall that retrieved only the first population would have left the second population in use, which is what the October expansion corrected.
Later Galaxy hardware is a separate file. The 2019 Galaxy Fold is the first foldable in that line, judged there by closed weight and the hinge. It is not a Note7, and the 2016 statements do not fold it into this recall. The Android history hub is where this safety record sits beside the other platform dates.
The process Samsung printed on January 23, 2017, is what remains in force on the page: eight named checks between the cell and shipment, charging algorithms on the safety list, and four outside battery specialists as advisers.
Further reading
- Android battery drain and performance guide for a phone you are still using, after you have ruled this recall out.
- Galaxy S8 Infinity Display for the flagship screen that followed in 2017.
- 2019 Galaxy Fold for the later foldable, which is a different hardware record.
- Android history hub for the timeline that holds this recall.
Method and sources. Updated October 18, 2026. The 35 cases, the September 1 cutoff, the battery cell issue, the sales stop, and the voluntary replacement come from Samsung’s September 2, 2016 statement. The global stop of sales and exchanges, the power-down instruction for original and replacement phones, and the CPSC working relationship come from the October 10, 2016 U.S. statement. The production halt and the Korea Exchange inquiry date come from the October 11, 2016 disclosure. The expanded U.S. recall, the September 15, 2016 date, the 3:00 p.m. ET start, and the exchange-or-refund remedy come from the October 13, 2016 U.S. notice. The Seoul conference, UL, Exponent, and TUV Rheinland come from the January 23, 2017 press notice. The battery conclusion, Battery A, Battery B, and the electrode and welding-burr descriptions come from the January 23, 2017 graphic. The eight test names, the multi-layer measures, and the advisory group come from the January 23, 2017 quality note. The CPSC recall URLs returned access denied on this pass, so no CPSC incident figure is used. The address samsung.com/us/note7recall returned HTTP 404 on October 18, 2026.
