Troublesome Technology?

Welcome back to the ClassAction.org newsletter! The theme of this week’s issue is technology. While advancements in technology are meant to make our lives easier, we tend to come across companies who overstate the capabilities of their products – and sometimes lawsuits are necessary to reign them back in. So, if you feel your Galaxy phone isn’t living up to the hype when it comes to performance or your DeWALT on-the-job earphones are getting too hot, we have some cases for you to keep an eye on. We’ll also touch on two new suits claiming, respectively, that HGTV.com is being a bit too liberal with your personal information and that the wheels on the Roomba vacuum are prone to malfunctioning, even after being replaced. And, as always, we have the latest in settlements for you down below.

- Ty Armstrong, Writer/Community Manager

Defect to Blame for Roomba Wheel Malfunction?

The Roomba is a convenient little device, but users have been reporting an issue that causes the wheels to malfunction, rendering the vacuums completely inoperable. Now, a proposed class action lawsuit has been filed in response. According to the suit, a defect is causing some Roombas’ wheels to stop turning properly while the machines display an “error 5” code. iRobot Corporation, the company behind the Roomba, reportedly offers a $59 wheel kit as a fix. The lawsuit states, however, that this does nothing to address the real problem, as a defect in the core processing unit is likely to blame. Per the case, iRobot knew about the apparent design defect in its Roombas yet continued to sell them to unknowing consumers who would not have purchased the vacuums had they been aware that the machines were defectively designed. The suit is looking to require iRobot to replace or recall the affected Roombas and to refund the money its customers spent on wheel kits. Want more? You can read up on the case here.

If you have a Samsung smartphone and feel like it isn’t quite as fast as it should be, you aren’t alone. A new lawsuit is claiming that Samsung misled both reviewers and the general public with regard to the speed, battery life and overall performance of certain Galaxy devices. The suit contends that Samsung has secretly programmed the smartphones – which are touted as having better performance and longer battery life – to cheat performance-measuring “benchmark” apps, creating the false perception that the products actually perform as well and last as long as advertised. When handling real-world tasks, however, the phones’ processors run at significantly lower speeds, the suit says. It’s like those cases alleging that certain cars were programmed to cheat emissions testing when they were actively being tested – but with phones. We have a breakdown of the case, as well as a list of reportedly affected phones, right here.

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