Anker Innovations and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall covering roughly 481,000 power banks after an investigation found 33 reports of fire and explosion incidents, including four minor burn injuries and one report of substantial property damage. If you own an Anker power bank, checking the model number against this recall takes about a minute and is worth doing immediately rather than assuming your specific unit is fine.
The Exact Models Affected
Five Anker power bank models are covered by the recall: A1647, A1652, A1257, A1681, and A1689. The model number is printed on the back or side of the device. Anker has said the issue traces back to lithium-ion battery cells supplied by a single vendor and used across these specific models, which is why the recall is scoped to these exact numbers rather than Anker’s full product lineup.
How to Check If Your Specific Unit Is Affected
Matching the model number is the first step, but not the only one. Once you’ve confirmed your power bank is one of the five affected models, check the serial number, also printed on the device. According to the recall notice, affected units have serial numbers that do not contain the letters “O” or “I.” If your model number matches and your serial number doesn’t contain either of those letters, your specific unit is part of the recall.
What to Do Immediately If Your Unit Is Affected
Stop using the power bank right away. Don’t charge it, and don’t use it to charge another device. Lithium-ion battery fires and explosions, the specific hazard behind this recall, can happen with escalating risk the longer a defective cell continues charging and discharging cycles, so setting the device aside immediately rather than using it “one more time” is the safer move.
How to Get a Refund
Anker is offering affected owners a cash refund or a gift card toward other Anker products. To claim it, go to Anker’s recall page and submit your device’s serial number along with a photo of the unit showing both the model number and serial number, with the word “recalled” written on the device or included in the photo. The specific recall form is available directly through Anker’s website; searching “Anker power bank recall” plus your model number will surface it quickly, and the process doesn’t require mailing the unit back before receiving confirmation of the refund.
This Isn’t Anker’s First Power Bank Recall
It’s worth knowing this isn’t an isolated, one-time event for the brand. A separate, earlier recall covered more than 1,158,000 units of the PowerCore 10000 (model A1263), sold between 2016 and 2022, for a related battery safety issue. Two large-scale recalls from the same manufacturer, covering different product generations, is a reasonable signal to specifically check any older Anker power banks sitting in a drawer or travel bag, not just recently purchased ones, since “recalled” isn’t limited to devices bought in the last year or two.
Why Power Bank Fires Are a Real, Growing Category of Hazard
Lithium-ion battery fires from portable electronics have become a large enough problem that airlines, waste management systems, and consumer safety regulators have all adjusted policies specifically in response. A power bank combines a meaningful energy density with frequent physical wear, being dropped, crushed in a bag, left in a hot car, that a fixed-in-place device like a laptop battery is less exposed to day to day. That combination of energy density and physical handling risk is exactly why recalls in this specific product category, power banks and portable chargers broadly, have become more frequent across multiple brands in recent years, not just Anker.
How to Stay Ahead of the Next One
Most people find out about a recall like this one after seeing a news article, if they see it at all, rather than through any direct notice from the manufacturer or retailer. The CPSC offers a more reliable path: subscribing to its email alerts, sent at the end of each business day whenever new recalls are announced, covers every product category the agency tracks, not just electronics. The CPSC also runs a dedicated recall mobile app specifically built to let a consumer search whether a product they own has been recalled, and SaferProducts.gov is the public database where anyone can file or read complaints about a specific product, sometimes surfacing safety issues well before an official recall is announced. None of these require any specialized knowledge or account setup beyond an email address, and for anyone who owns multiple lithium-ion battery devices, power banks, e-bikes, cordless tools, subscribing once is a meaningfully better safety net than hoping a future recall crosses their social media feed.
Don’t Throw a Recalled Power Bank in the Trash
A recalled lithium-ion device shouldn’t go in regular household trash, curbside recycling, or even the used-battery recycling boxes commonly found at retail and home improvement stores, since those aren’t equipped to handle a battery already flagged as a fire risk. The safer path is contacting a local municipal household hazardous waste collection center directly and asking specifically whether they accept recalled lithium-ion batteries or devices before bringing it in; if they don’t, the municipality can point to the right facility. In the meantime, if a unit shows any physical signs of trouble, swelling, heat, a leak, visible damage, or if it’s simply been sitting unused since the recall was announced, storing it in a non-flammable container away from people and other flammable materials is a reasonable precaution while arranging proper disposal.
This Recall Isn’t an Isolated Incident in the Category
Anker’s recall is part of a broader, active pattern across the power bank category, not a single-brand anomaly. Separate 2025-2026 CPSC actions covered power banks from Casely (reannounced in 2026 after a fatality was reported following the original 2025 recall), VC Group, and INIU, each citing the same underlying fire and burn hazard from lithium-ion cells. That pattern is worth taking as a signal about the category broadly: a portable power bank sitting unused in a bag or drawer isn’t inherently risk-free simply because it hasn’t caused a problem yet, and checking any power bank currently in household use against the current CPSC recall list, not just the Anker models covered here, is a reasonable few minutes spent.
What to Check Before Buying a Replacement
If your power bank is part of this recall and you’re shopping for a replacement, a few concrete things worth checking regardless of brand:
- Look for UL 2056 or IEC 62133 certification specifically, the safety standards most directly relevant to portable lithium-ion battery packs, printed on the device or its packaging.
- Check the CPSC’s recall database directly before buying, searching by brand name, for any open recalls on the specific model being considered, since a recall notice doesn’t always reach every retailer’s product listing in a timely way.
- Avoid unbranded or marketplace-only power banks with no traceable manufacturer, since a real recall process, refund pathway, and safety investigation like the one described above depend on there being an identifiable company to hold accountable if a defect surfaces later.
- Register the product with the manufacturer when possible, even for something as simple as a power bank, since registered owners are the ones a company can directly notify by email if a future recall affects that specific unit, rather than relying on the owner to see a news report.
The Bottom Line
Checking a power bank’s model and serial number against this recall takes a minute and directly addresses a real, documented fire and burn risk, not a theoretical one. With 33 reported incidents and injuries already on record, this is a case where acting on the recall notice immediately, rather than filing it away to check later, is the appropriate level of urgency.
*Sources: CPSC’s official recall notice for Anker power banks (models A1647, A1652, A1257, A1681, A1689), cross-checked against Anker’s own recall page and Macworld’s 2026 reporting on the investigation.*
Photo credit: “Infinite Power!….Problem?” by dvanzuijlekom, licensed BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/52365139@N05/14627546992
