Kids' Speaker Recalled for Fire Risk

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is warning that the battery in a children's speaker can overheat and catch fire, posing a burn risk to the kids using it. The Yoto Mini, which allows children to listen to music, audiobooks, podcasts, and more, has a lithium-ion battery, and Yoto has received seven complaints so far about the speaker overheating or melting, CNN reports. No injuries have been reported. Parents should immediately move the speakers out of reach of children, the CPSC says, but there is a fix, so the speakers do not need to be thrown away.

Instead, parents are advised to cut the charging cable that came with the speaker and upload a photo to the Yoto recall website to prove they've done so. They can then request a free "smart cable," the company says. "The Yoto Mini Smart Cable will keep the battery charge within safe limits and prevent it potentially overheating by stopping charging when it reaches a certain point," Yoto explains. An automatic software update that applies to all Yoto speakers has also been implemented, and will "improve battery management and extend Yoto Mini use between charges," the company says, per the Verge. The recall affects about 270,000 speakers, most of them in the US. (More product recall stories.)