Responding to Overheating Reports on Nova Tab after Launch

Good morning, everyone. Six days after the Nova Tab launch, we have a growing number of overheating reports, mostly on social media. Nothing suggests a safety incident so far, but the posts are getting attention, and I want us to respond with facts rather than guesses. Let's start with introductions.

Kyle, Field Quality. I've pulled the thermal telemetry for every activated Nova Tab.

Irene, launch program manager for Nova Tab. I'm here to make sure whatever we decide fits the post-launch update plan.

Taeho, Kernel and BSP. I own thermal management on Nova Tab, so the thresholds we argued about two weeks ago are mine.

Chris, also Kernel and BSP. I'm backing Taeho up, and I also cover the charging driver.

Eunji, Customer Experience. My team is handling the contacts and watching the social channels.

Eunji, could you start with what people are saying?

The pattern is consistent. Users say the tablet gets very hot on the back, near the lower left corner, when they watch videos while charging. Several posts include photos of an infrared thermometer showing between forty-five and forty-seven degrees. One video with those readings has around three hundred thousand views. Contact volume about heat is still low, about two hundred contacts, but it doubled yesterday.

Forty-seven degrees is above our forty-five-degree surface limit. That's the number that worries me most, if it's accurate.

Most of the posts come from hot climates: the Gulf region, India, and Southeast Asia. People describe watching videos in the afternoon with the charger connected, which is a very normal way to use a tablet.

Thank you. Kyle, what does our own data say?

Our internal skin temperature sensor estimates the surface temperature continuously. Across all activated devices, the highest estimate we've recorded is forty-three point eight degrees, and that only happens in a specific combination: charging with the fast charger, screen brightness above eighty percent, video playback, and ambient temperature above thirty degrees. In that combination, throttling engages as designed.

So our sensor says forty-four, and customers measure forty-seven. Someone is wrong, or we're measuring different spots.

I think it's the second. Our skin temperature estimate is calibrated to the hottest point during gaming, which is above the processor in the upper middle of the back. The lower left corner, where customers are measuring, is right above the charging circuit. During gaming without charging, that spot is cool. During fast charging, it becomes a separate hot spot that our model doesn't account for.

That matches what I'd expect. Fast charging at forty-five watts dissipates a few watts of heat in the charging chip and the battery itself. When the screen is bright and the processor is decoding video at the same time, the heat from the charger has nowhere to go.

Have we measured that spot ourselves? I don't want to rely on customer photos.

Nina's team did it last night in the thermal chamber, with thermocouples on the charging corner. At thirty-two degrees ambient, fast charging, maximum brightness, and video streaming, the corner reached forty-six point two degrees after forty minutes. So the customer reports are credible, and we have a real gap.

We ran worst-case thermal tests two weeks ago. Why didn't they catch this?

Our worst case was gaming while charging at thirty-five degrees. That stresses the processor heavily, which triggers throttling, and throttling also reduces the total heat, including near the charger. Video playback is different. The processor load is low, so we never throttle, but the charger runs at full power the whole time. We tested the scenario that heats the processor most, not the one that heats the charger most.

And that's the irony: the lighter workload creates the hotter spot, because nothing in our policy reacts to it.

That's a useful lesson for every device with fast charging. Let's make sure it ends up in the thermal test plan for Atlas and Atlas Lite.

I'll make sure of that. Charging plus low-load, high-brightness scenarios will become a standard case.

I'd also add more probe points to the standard chamber setup. We only measured where we expected the heat to be. If we had placed a probe on every corner, the charging hot spot would have shown up in the very first test, even with the wrong scenario.

Let's talk about fixes. Taeho, Chris, what can we change?

The cleanest fix is a charging-aware thermal policy. When the screen is on and the charging corner gets warm, we reduce the charging current. Most users wouldn't notice: the tablet would charge a bit more slowly while they watch videos, and at full speed when the screen is off. We already have a temperature sensor near the charging chip; we just don't feed it into the thermal policy.

I've already prototyped it on two devices this morning. With the charging current limited to about twenty watts when the corner sensor reads above forty degrees, the corner peaks at forty-two point five in the same chamber test. That leaves a two and a half degree margin under the limit.

How does that affect charging time? Fast charging is one of the features we marketed.

The marketed claim is fifty percent in thirty minutes, measured with the screen off. That doesn't change at all. Only when someone charges while watching video in a hot room does it slow down, and in that case, I'd argue slower charging is the right trade-off.

I agree. Can this be changed without a full system update?

Unfortunately not. The thermal configuration lives in the vendor partition, and the logic that links the charging sensor to the policy is new code in the thermal driver. It needs an OTA.

Irene, what's the fastest realistic path to customers?

Nova Tab's first monthly update is planned for September 15th, with a content cutoff on September 4th. If Taeho's fix is ready and validated by then, it fits naturally. Going faster would mean a separate emergency update, which needs its own carrier approvals for the LTE models.

About eighty-five percent of Nova Tab units are Wi-Fi only, which don't need carrier approval. Could we ship the fix to Wi-Fi models earlier, as a small separate update, and include it for LTE models in the monthly update?

That's possible. If the fix is validated by September 2nd, we could push it to Wi-Fi models on September 4th, eleven days earlier than the monthly update. That reaches most users much sooner.

For validation, I'd want the full thermal matrix this time, including the video and charging scenario we missed, plus a regression on charging time and battery health. Five days is enough if the chamber is available.

I'll make sure the chamber is booked. This takes priority over the Atlas Lite baseline tests scheduled for next week.

Until the update arrives, is there anything users can do themselves?

Yes. The tablet has a setting to use standard charging instead of fast charging. With standard charging, the corner stays below forty-two degrees in all of our tests. It's a simple switch in the battery settings.

That's helpful for support. But I'd be careful about how we present it. If our public message is just 'turn off fast charging', it sounds like we're asking customers to give up a feature they paid for. It's better if it's clearly temporary, tied to a dated update.

Agreed. Let's draft a statement that does three things: acknowledges that some users notice the tablet getting warm while charging and watching video, confirms that an update arriving in early September will improve this, and mentions the standard charging setting as an option in the meantime. No defensive language about specifications.

One question: should we mention the forty-five-degree limit or the measurements at all?

Not in the public statement. Numbers invite arguments about measurement methods, and that conversation never goes well on social media. But support should have the facts, in case a customer or a journalist asks directly.

There's another question I expect journalists to ask. Even if the surface temperature isn't dangerous, does repeated heating near the battery shorten its life? If the answer is yes, we need to know before someone else writes about it.

It's a fair question. Battery wear increases with temperature, especially when the battery is being charged at high current while it's already warm. In the scenario we're discussing, the cell temperature reached about forty-one degrees in Nina's test. That's within the cell manufacturer's charging limits, but it's toward the upper end, and over hundreds of cycles, it would cost some capacity compared with charging at room temperature.

The charging-aware policy helps here too. By reducing the current when the corner is warm, it also keeps the cell several degrees cooler. In my prototype, the peak cell temperature dropped to about thirty-seven degrees. So the fix improves battery longevity as a side benefit.

Should we track battery health in telemetry to confirm that? We already collect the estimated capacity once a week. If we compare users who often charge while watching videos with those who don't, we'd have real data within a few months.

Yes, let's set that up. If anyone asks about long-term effects, I'd much rather answer with our own data than with theory. And if the data ever shows a meaningful difference, we'll want to know early.

For support, I'll prepare a short answer on battery health that's honest but not alarming: charging in hot conditions can slightly increase battery wear over time, the upcoming update reduces heat while charging, and the tablet has built-in protections that limit charging if the battery gets too warm.

How do we make sure the people who posted about this actually hear about the fix? A statement on our community forum won't reach someone who watched a viral video.

Our social team can reply directly to the most visible posts with a short, friendly message and a link to the statement. When the update ships, they can reply again saying it's available. People usually appreciate a follow-up much more than the first reply.

I like that. And the update itself should include a clear line in the release notes, something like 'improves temperature management while charging', so users who were worried can see it's been addressed.

After the Wi-Fi update goes out, I'll compare the heat-related contacts and the charging corner temperature before and after, and share the result. If the numbers drop clearly, that's a good story to tell as well.

Should we check whether other products have the same gap? Orion Fold launches in three weeks with forty-five-watt charging as well.

Yes, definitely. Orion Fold has a different thermal design, but the charging chip is in a similar position relative to where users hold it. I'll ask Nina to run the video and charging scenario on Orion Fold this week. If there's a gap, it's much better to find it before launch than after.

I'll let Sarah know today. The Orion Fold factory build goes out tomorrow, so any fix would have to go into its day-one update.

And Orion and Orion Lite have been in the market for months with lower charging power, and we've seen no similar reports. So I'm fairly confident this is specific to forty-five-watt devices.

Let me summarize. Taeho and Chris: finalize the charging-aware thermal policy, with validation complete by September 2nd. Irene: plan a Wi-Fi-only update on September 4th, and include the fix in the September 15th monthly update for LTE models. Eunji: prepare support guidance and the public statement with me today. Kyle: monitor the heat-related contacts and the charging corner temperature in telemetry once we add it. Taeho: check Orion Fold with Nina this week.

Can the update also report the charging chip temperature in telemetry? Right now, we're blind to that spot.

Good idea, and it's trivial to add. I'll include it in the same change. I'll also report how often the new charging limit actually activates, so we can see how many users were in the risky scenario and confirm the policy isn't kicking in more often than we expect.

That's useful for marketing too. If the limit only activates for a small share of users, we can say with confidence that the fast charging experience hasn't changed for almost everyone.

Thank you, everyone. This is a good example of why field data and customer voices matter even when our sensors say everything is fine. Our next check-in is Monday, August 31st, at 10 a.m. Korea time, to review the validation progress and the first reactions to the statement.

I'll send you the draft statement within the hour, and I'll brief the support agents this afternoon so they can start giving consistent answers today, even before the statement is published.

Thanks, Hannah. I'll update the release plan this afternoon and share it with the regional teams in the Gulf, India, and Southeast Asia, since those markets are where most of the reports come from. They should know the dates before their customers start asking.

And I'll post the chamber results for the fix in the launch channel as soon as each run finishes, so nobody has to wait until Monday to see whether it's working.

Thanks, everyone. I'll also brief the Atlas thermal team this week, so the charging scenario is in their plan from the start rather than discovered after launch.