The Note 7
The Note 7. Samsung
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Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

All major carriers will remote-brick the company’s flagship phone come the new year.

As of Thursday, all major U.S. cellular carriers have announced plans to remote-brick fire-catching Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. Verizon, the final holdout will issue an over-the-air software update on January 5 that will prevent the devices from both charging and connecting to cellular networks.

Samsung will release the phone-bricking update on Monday, but the four major cell carriers will push the software to any remaining Note 7 users on different dates. T-Mobile will go first on December 27, followed by AT&T and Verizon on January 5, and finally Sprint on January 8.

As it happens, the crippling software update won’t affect many users. Samsung issued a voluntary recall, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission issued a recall of its own in September. Since then, reports show that that 93 percent of users have already turned their devices back in for either another model or a refund.

Holdouts, however, may have a tough time traveling over the holidays if they wait for the software update to hit their handsets. The FAA banned the phones from all flights in October.

Corinne Iozzio
Corinne Iozzio

Corinne Iozzio is the former Editor-in-Chief of Popular Science. In that role, she oversaw an award-winning crew of science journalists—both editors and writers—who are obsessed with shining a light on the thousands of ways science and technology transform our lives daily. She lives in Washington Heights in New York City (or, as she affectionately refers to it, “Upstate Manhattan”) with her partner, an ever-expanding collection of vintage hand-blown glass, and a talkative tuxedo cat hellbent on knocking it all to pieces.

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