CPSC Recalls 21,380 NEWDERY Power Banks a Year After Warning Consumers the Company Wouldn't

The Consumer Product Safety Commission and NEWDERY, the brand name used by a Chinese electronics importer, announced a formal recall this week of roughly 21,380 portable power banks after the devices' lithium-ion batteries were linked to nine fires and explosions, including one blaze that caused an estimated $2 million in property damage. The recall, dated Sept. 24, closes out a saga that began more than a year earlier, when the same agency took the unusual step of warning consumers directly because the manufacturer had refused to recall the product on its own.

The affected devices, model number ZHX-PB22, are black power banks with yellow charging cables and the NEWDERY name engraved on the front. They were sold exclusively on Amazon.com between October 2023 and November 2024, priced between $27 and $50, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's recall notice. The recall was also confirmed in wire coverage carried by Yahoo News.

The numbers

The agency said it has received nine reports of the power banks exploding or igniting since they went on sale. One of those incidents caused a fire serious enough to produce roughly $2 million in property damage; a separate incident resulted in a burn injury. No deaths have been reported in connection with the ZHX-PB22 model, the commission said.

Consumers who own the product are being told to stop using it immediately. To receive a full refund, NEWDERY is requiring owners to write "recalled" and their last name on the device in permanent marker, photograph the unit showing its model and serial numbers, and submit that image to the company. Because lithium-ion batteries pose a fire risk even when discarded, the company and the commission are directing consumers to take the devices to a local household hazardous waste facility rather than placing them in the trash or a standard battery-recycling bin.

How we got here, and who is affected

The current recall is notable less for its scale than for how long it took to happen. In June 2025, the CPSC issued a public safety warning urging consumers to immediately stop using an earlier batch of roughly 17,670 of the same ZHX-PB22 power banks, citing identical hazards. At the time, the agency said plainly that the importer, Shenzhen Xinkewangda Electronics Co., doing business as NEWDERY, "has refused to conduct a recall" of the product — a rare public disclosure that lets consumers know a company declined to cooperate with a standard voluntary recall process.

Issuing a direct warning without a company's cooperation is one of the more forceful tools available to the commission short of a mandatory recall order, which requires a longer administrative or court process. More than a year after that warning, the agency and the company have now reached a formal recall agreement covering a larger pool of units — 21,380, up from the 17,670 initially flagged — reflecting additional sales identified in the interim. NEWDERY's own recall page lays out the refund process now in effect, and local television coverage, including a report broadcast by NBC Montana, grouped the recall alongside other battery and fuel-container hazards flagged the same week.

The power banks were marketed as compact backup chargers for phones and other small electronics and sold only through Amazon's marketplace, meaning most buyers have a purchase record tied to their Amazon account that can help identify whether they own an affected unit. Because the product shipped over roughly 13 months, from late 2023 through late 2024, the commission is warning that a meaningful number of units are likely still in daily use, tucked into bags, glove compartments or desk drawers where a battery fault could go unnoticed until it fails.

The recall is one of several battery-related actions the commission has taken in recent months. It arrived in the same batch of notices as recalls of reclining-chair battery packs and other lithium-ion products, underscoring a pattern regulators have flagged repeatedly: batteries packed into small consumer electronics, often sourced from low-cost overseas suppliers and sold through online marketplaces with limited oversight, have become one of the most persistent fire-safety concerns tracked by the agency. Portable power banks in particular have drawn scrutiny because they are designed to be carried in pockets, backpacks and carry-on luggage, placing a battery capable of catastrophic failure in close proximity to people for hours at a time.

Fire investigators who study lithium-ion failures generally attribute incidents like the ones described in the NEWDERY recall to a phenomenon known as thermal runaway, in which internal damage, a manufacturing defect or a short circuit inside a battery cell causes its temperature to spike uncontrollably, sometimes within seconds. Once thermal runaway begins in one cell, the heat can spread to adjacent cells, which is why battery fires in compact devices can escalate quickly and are difficult to extinguish with water alone.

The lithium-ion battery in the power banks can explode or ignite, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers.

That description, used by the commission in both the 2025 warning and the 2026 recall notice, has remained essentially unchanged even as the response to it evolved from a unilateral public alert to a negotiated recall with refunds.

What happens next

NEWDERY is directing affected consumers to its dedicated recall page or its customer service line to begin the refund process. The commission has not indicated whether the company faces any additional penalty tied to its initial refusal to recall the product, and the agency's public notices do not disclose the substance of negotiations that led to the eventual agreement.

For now, the practical guidance from regulators is unchanged from what it was in June 2025: owners of the ZHX-PB22 power bank should stop charging or using the device immediately, store it away from flammable materials until it can be disposed of properly, and avoid placing it in ordinary trash or recycling streams. Fire officials in several jurisdictions have separately urged residents to bring damaged or recalled lithium-ion devices to municipal hazardous-waste sites rather than storing them indefinitely, given that battery cells can short and ignite even while sitting unused.

The case adds to a broader debate among consumer-safety advocates over whether current law gives the commission enough leverage to compel fast action from overseas importers who sell primarily through online marketplaces, where products can reach tens of thousands of households before a hazard is confirmed. The gap between the agency's initial public warning and the completed recall — more than 15 months — is likely to be cited in that debate as regulators and lawmakers continue to examine how quickly marketplace-sold electronics can be pulled from consumers' homes once a fire risk is identified.