Yes, because mailing would be dangerous and they’d be forced to collect in an expensive way. Maybe they’d be more careful about generating faulty products then.

I got my dad an Anker Bluetooth speaker a year or so ago that was subject to a recall due to the rechargeable battery inside presenting a fire hazard.

Fortunately, by way of the serial number, his was not one of the effected units, but I had the same question you did when I saw this article.

Many places have ways to drop off a bit of e-waste for free. In my area electronics manufacturers who sell their products in the state have to facilitate free recycling of e-waste. In practice this means pretty much any large electronics shop has a bin somewhere you can freely leave stuff to get recycled.

I've been very happy with UGreen as a replacement to Anker, after the Eufy thing. Have not tried a power bank yet, but the charger and cables have held up so far.

What Eufy thing? I'm curious because I was about to pick up a security system from them.

A few years ago they were saving footage from peoples' cameras in the cloud without consent.

I suggest you look it up in detail, my memory on the details are not only hazzy, I never looked that deep into it, beyond "well thats shitty, rip Anker".

but the TDLR;
A few years back Eufy (owned by Anker), they didn't tell anyone video was stored on the cloud, and then it turned out the live video stream was exposed to the open web.
Initial response was lack-luster and Anker didn't own up to anything.

Its been a few years, possible things are different. Also possible initial issues were blown out of proportion, and I never heard any of the "corrections" no one ever makes.

It's in its early days, but consumerrights.wiki has potential to become a very valuable place to check before buying anything. The summery there is much better.

Yes but for this recall it’s not traditional e-waste.

From their website below. The onus of safe disposal is entirely on the consumer:

How to Safely Dispose of Your Power Bank
Do not throw this recalled lithium-ion battery in the trash, in the general recycling stream (e.g., street-level or curbside recycling bins), or in used battery recycling boxes found at various retail and home improvement stores. Recalled lithium-ion batteries must be disposed of differently than other batteries, because they present a greater risk of fire. Your municipal household hazardous waste (HHW) collection center may accept this recalled lithium-ion battery for disposal. Before taking your battery to a HHW collection center, contact it ahead of time and ask whether it accepts recalled lithium-ion batteries. If it does not, contact your municipality for further guidance.

On top of what the other comments said, they did facial recognition with tracking. They created an id that was attached to a certain person. When the unit was reset, the same id was applied. People didn't know this happened, because supposedly nothing went to the cloud or something.

Eufy security cam 'stored unique ID' of everyone filmed

Gadget maker accused of 'corporate voyeurism' by gathering up footage against your wishes

(www.theregister.com)

I have a Reolink that is completely offline, but they also are under scrutiny for having Chinese backdoors in their newest models.

An other alternative is Ubiquity, but they are expensive. They used to have a completely offline offering, but I started looking at Reolink because Ubiquity started with cloud logins. Things may have changed, so look up more recent, non anecdotal, information.

Thanks man! Really appreciate the type up! Have a great weekend!