I would not use this at all, as you said, fire hazard.

See if you can't return it for a new one.

Show us the wall wart side where it says the voltage that it charges at, it's likely you had something there that acted as a conductor and normally there's not really a risk of shorting. If you want to try again, Clean as much charring away as you can, since it might be a better conductor than the mug material that gap distance was designed for. I would scrape away all the black, use an exacto or razor blade to cut a little more, then fill it with a little bit of 5 minute epoxy or superglue or something.

This is all assuming the voltage and amperage across that gap isn't all that high. Do you think it's likely a drop of water or something got in there as you went to charge it?

The similar one I had only lasted about a year. The contact rings shown in your picture corrode and make intermittent contact for charging. Then the battery gives out and won't hold a charge.

Frankly, I'd dump it and get a cheap candle warmer and a flat-bottom mug. That's what I've been using for two years.

Clean the char off and see if it works. Provided you get all that conductive carbon removed, and there isn't anything damaged internally then I don't see why it wouldn't work. Definitely don't leave it plugged in unsupervised for a while though.

you crazy

that is a fire hazard lol

A fire is way more expensive though.
If you need to keep something hot, just get something like a zohirushi mug.
It's so well insulated that I have to dump an ice cube in it otherwise it's stays too hot for too long.
No batteries, no gimmick. Mine is 11 years and still kicking.

can you? sure!

should you? probably not.

let me ask this question, do you have good fire insurance?

If you look closely, that doesn't look like arcing. That used to be a spider. Clean him off.

i guess they had a good reason to call their company Ember...

It really doesn't look like arcing to me.

Mine's 5+ looks and works like new. That enamel is tough.

Those two metal rings are the line voltage, and the return. It looks like there was some animal stuck between then and didn't survive it. I would t commend trying to unplug and clean it up.
If the plastic looks deformed it would be time time to look for a new one. It's not generally dangerous in this case, but your missing isolation and that might come back and bite you

What even is this thing? Everyone in here talks about as if they knew, but it looks entirely unfamiliar to me.

Gimmicky self-warming mug thing.

You charge the mug on the shown base, and the mug has like a screen and (I think) a companion app. It stays at the same-ish temperature.

Riding on top of this top comment, I'm and electrical engineer, looked up you mug and its only 19VDC which means its almost impossible to have arcing with such a low voltage and that big of a gap. Try cleaning it, looks like a critter to me too.

Its weird. I have tried. The remaining black stuff seems to be melted plastic.

That would make sense. It could easily be water.

If thats truely melted plastic then more likely is you had a partial short and the 19V was dumping bursts of high current between the rings and slowly heated it. The question is what got between the two rings that made the partial short. Was there any organic or conductive stuff between the rings that you removed?

When the mug is on the base do you get a power indicator to tell you its working?

I dont think its a fire hazard but its certainly suspect. Gouge out the burnt plastic and see if there is a PCB hiding under the surface that those two gold rings are part of.

It'll likely hold a liquid warm for longer than the battery-thing too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why would people use this? Is it intended for tea or coffee drinkers that just sip their drink for hours? I feel like it would be more beneficial to keep food warm.

I use my ember mug because sometimes that first sip of coffee in the morning triggers something... urgent.

It's nice to come back and still have my coffee at the temperature I left it. I also like that it keeps the coffee warm without overheating and burning it, like a hot plate would.

IDK about later models, but mine has no screen and I control it with open source software.

Thanks that makes sense

clean it out with a cotton bud and sone isopropyl alcohol. If there's still scorches/carbonized plastic after cleaning, not worth the risk ( the carbon will act as a short payh for future arcing)

I usually drink my coffee while I'm doing other things like video games or browsing Lemmy or cooking breakfast etc so it usually takes me a bit to get through a cup since ei often forget it's there. Nice to not have to pop it into the microwave every time.

Ember technologies Inc, that's a big example of nominative determinism

They're largely pointless with the prevalence of vacuum insulated mugs. Not really sure why anybody would want to add batteries and chargers to a hot drink scenario, but I also generally finish my coffee before it's cold from a regular ceramic mug.

Same. I also don't want a coffee mug warmer app on my phone but we aren't the target demographic for this product I guesd

triggers something... urgent.

Sir, that's why I'm drinking the coffee.

All this time I've been using self heated candles

My wife, who has ADHD but is otherwise absolutely not the target demographic of Lemmy, has three and appears to appreciate them.

One man's gimmick is another man's wife's favorite mug 🤷‍♂️

Hers has been going strong for like 4 or 5 years now.

One of the pins in the charging pad got a little wonky a year or so ago, but I fixed it, still going strong.

She likes it because it keeps it at the perfect temperature for hours, and lets her savor the flavor without feeling rushed to drink or before it's cold. Or heat it up only to have to wait for it to cool again, and then miss the perfect zone again.

She'd never justify the cost of buying it for herself, it was my present to her.

Me? I just use an insulated mug, and I drink it within an hour or so, fine enough for me.

Open source you say? I'm gonna have to look into that. The app is pretty dumb.

I can't knock it till I try it haha

Forget savoring, this sounds like the perfect option for my ADHD butt. So many cups of coffee half-drank because I wandered off to do something else before finishing.

My mind immediately went to ADHD as well. I can really see the utility for it in that case. I also deal with that, and I've lost so many mugs of half-finished coffee. It's even worse because I'll have coffee first thing in the morning, before the meds kick in. And the caffeine itself also helps with ADHD symptoms. So I'm having my morning coffee at maximum levels of squirrel brain.

You don't need to use the app at all.

You have an alternate to the Ember app? what is it?

I take a long time to drink my coffee, don't want a warmer at my desk, and hate the metal and bulk of the double walled mugs I have. The ember has been a really nice luxury. When I'm done, I take it back to the kitchen, quick hand wash and dry, back on the charger plate for the next time. I don't expect everyone to get it, but I really enjoy mine.

There are many open ember controls on github. This one worked the last time I used it: https://github.com/zopieux/mugctl

There are many open ember controls on github. This one worked the last time I used it: https://github.com/zopieux/mugctl

Thanks for the link! I did a cursory search earlier but didn't have time to dig past my first couple term searches which turned up nothing useful.