Ad-free. Influence-free. Powered by consumers.
Get involved
Issues we work on
The payment for your account couldn’t be processed or you’ve canceled your account with us.
Sign In
We don’t recognize that sign in.
Your username maybe be your email address. Passwords are 6-20 characters with at least one number and letter.
We still don’t recognize that sign in.
Retrieve your username.
Reset your password.
*Required
*Required
Forgot your username or password?
Don’t have an account?
My account

Save products you love, products you own and much more!
Other Membership Benefits:
Suggested Searches
Cars
Car Ratings & Reviews
CARS
2025 Top Picks
Car Buying & Pricing

Which Car Brands Make the Best Vehicles?
Tires, Maintenance & Repair

Car Reliability Guide
Key Topics & News
CAR NEWS
Listen to the Talking Cars Podcast
Home & Garden
Bed & Bath
Top Picks From CR
Best Mattresses
Lawn & Garden
TOP PICKS FROM CR
Best Lawn Mowers and Tractors
Home Improvement
Home Improvement Essential
Best Wood Stains
Home Safety & Security
HOME SAFETY
Best DIY Home Security Systems
Appliances
Kitchen
SURVEY RESULTS
Most and Least Reliable Refrigerators
Small Appliances
TOP PICKS FROM CR
Best Small Kitchen Appliances
Laundry & Cleaning
Top Picks From CR
Best Washing Machines
Heating, Cooling & Air
TOP PICKS FROM CR
Best Space Heaters
Electronics
Home Entertainment
FIND YOUR NEW TV
Best TVs
Home Office
Save Money
Cheapest Printers for Ink Costs
Smartphones & Wearables
BEST SMARTPHONES
Find the Right Phone for You
Digital Security
Digital Security & Privacy
CR PERMISSION SLIP APP
One app to take back control of your data
More
Take Action
A new law requires more secure battery compartments, but gaps remain. Here’s how to keep your family safe.
Cute strings of fairy lights, little flameless candles, goofy flashing headbands and dress-up clothes, and tons of toys that blink, beep, and buzz. Around the holidays especially, the market is awash with all sorts of playful electronic gizmos and gadgets. Many of them are powered by what are called button cell (or coin cell) batteries, aptly named because of their shape and small size. 
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
These batteries are powerful and compact. Unfortunately, they’re also uniquely dangerous if they get into the hands of young kids.
The choking hazard is obvious. But there are other hidden dangers if they are ingested: Fluids in the body can activate the battery’s electrical current, even in a used or “dead” battery. A battery can burn through a child’s esophagus or throat in as little as 2 hours. In contact with stomach acid, a battery can leak corrosive elements, too, posing the risk of poisoning. And if a curious child puts a battery into his or her nose or ear, body tissue there can be damaged.
Batteries that are swallowed or inserted often have to be surgically removed, and the damage they leave behind can be lasting. 
There were an estimated 54,300 emergency room visits and at least 25 deaths attributed to button battery exposure from 2011 to 2021, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. An estimated 78 percent of those emergency room visits involved a child age 6 or under.
Enacted in 2022, Reese’s Law—championed by mom Trista Hamsmith, whose daughter Reese died after swallowing a button battery—sets federal requirements for button cell batteries. After the law’s passage, the CPSC created a new safety standard that requires many items with such batteries to have more secure compartments for them as well as specific warning labels. 
But the CPSC requirements don’t yet apply to toys, which are already covered under a different mandatory standard that CR safety experts believe is too weak. They say that standard does not require rigorous enough testing to ensure that the battery compartments and fasteners used to secure them are durable.
Moreover, the CPSC regulations apply only to items manufactured or imported after March 19, 2024. 
So Consumer Reports decided to buy a bunch of button-battery-powered devices online to get a view of how safe the marketplace is right now.
The battery compartments of these tea lights are very easy to pop open. The manufacturer tells CR that a newly designed version of these lights has a screw securing the battery compartment shut.
Consumer Reports bought 31 products that run on button batteries to evaluate how they were built and what, if any, warning labels they had. Our list, which included children’s items as well as general household goods, was informed by the types of toys and decor popular around the holidays and that have been tied to button-battery-related emergency room visits.
In our haul: LED “fairy lights,” tea lights, and candles; costume items including a light-up tutu, gloves, and a Christmas-themed headband; LCD writing tablets for kids; and party favors and stocking stuffers like fidget-spinner bracelets and glow sticks. 
The results were alarming: Ten out of the 31 products we bought had dangerously accessible button batteries, and many more lacked clear warnings about the risks they posed.
Here’s what you need to know to keep your kids safe.
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
First, the good news. Many of the products we bought were built in such a way that kids couldn’t easily get to their button batteries. If the items’ batteries were meant to be replaced, opening the battery compartment required the use of either a screwdriver or a coin, or two independent and simultaneous hand movements. If the items had nonreplaceable batteries, the compartments weren’t accessible. 
Toys like a Tamagotchi, a Furby, and a Blippi talking figure all passed this construction test. Several of the string lights, the LCD writing tablets, and some of the fake candles did, too. Five of the products we bought included a remote control with button batteries, and all had secure battery compartments that a child could not easily open. 
In all, 21 of the 31 products we bought are safer from button battery risk, according to Juan Alberto Arguello, PhD, who led CR’s tests.
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
Ten products were deemed problematic, though. Among the worst were five that had battery compartments that were incredibly easy to open (potentially even for a baby). These included red tea lights made by a company called LumaBase, some novelty light-up gloves for kids made by Cotruere, a light-up costume tutu meant for two-to-eight-year-olds by Zeyue, a Christmas-themed headband by Elcoho US, and a thermometer marketed for use by adults and kids, made by Boncare.
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
Arguello says the thermometer’s battery compartment can be popped open easily with one hand. For the others on that list, “You only need one finger to open up these compartments,” Arguello says. “The plastic is very soft and weak.”
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
In addition, five more products in our evaluation, while having batteries that weren’t quite so dangerously accessible, were found to still pose a risk because the battery compartments were so flimsy. Among these were items children might get at holiday time or as prizes at school: a fidget spinner bracelet made by a company called Maegawa, light-up plastic tubes by Kannove, Cokoka LED finger lights, light-up glasses by Zaaaslsm, and blinking rings by Wakestar. These five had battery compartments that easily snapped apart with a small amount of force and no tools. They could also fairly easily break, exposing their batteries, if they were dropped onto the floor, Arguello says.
CR attempted to contact the manufacturers of these 10 products to alert them to the risks we found and to ask whether they had plans to redesign their products to make their battery compartments more secure. LumaBase, the maker of the red tea lights we bought, said that as of “late summer” the battery compartments now have screws, so we must have bought some old products. A second LumaBase product that we evaluated—a set of mini string lights—did have a secure battery compartment.
Neither Boncare nor Wakestar responded to our request for comment. Contact information for Cotruere, Zeyue, Elcoho, Maegawa, Kannove, Cokoka, and Zaaaslsm could not be located.
Photos: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photos: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
The CPSC’s rule is specific about the warnings that must be included in the warning label on (nontoy) products that use button batteries and on the packaging of the batteries themselves. In plain language, the label must state the dangers and instruct consumers on what to do if someone has ingested or inserted one of the batteries anywhere in their body.
CR’s experts believe that even though warning labels aren’t enough to keep consumers safe on their own, they can help. Ideally warnings should appear in as many places as possible: on the outer package, in the instructions, and on the product itself. 
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
Of the 31 products we bought, 16 of them had no warning label at all. 
Of the 15 products that did have a warning label, only eight had all of the text CR safety experts would like to see, while the rest had only some of it. Partial warnings are insufficient: For instance, one warning label only described the choking hazard, which doesn’t fully capture the danger of a child swallowing a button battery. And only two products had warning labels on all three parts of the package—on the outer packaging, on the instructions, and on the product itself. 
“It’s unacceptable that so many button-battery-powered products, including children’s toys, lacked lifesaving information on their warning labels,” says Gabe Knight, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “In addition to safer design and sturdier compartments, clear, conspicuous, and informative warnings on these products can help alert parents and caregivers to the potential danger.”
That there is any meaningful protection from button batteries in most products today is due to one family’s tragedy and what followed from it.
Reese Elizabeth Hamsmith of Lubbock, Texas, was 16 months old in October 2020 when her parents took her to the pediatrician with symptoms resembling croup, according to her mother’s later testimony before Congress.
Only the next day, when Reese’s parents noticed that a remote control in their home was missing a battery, did they think there might be a connection. They rushed Reese to the emergency room to get an X-ray, and, when a battery was found to be lodged in her throat, Reese had emergency surgery, testified her mother, Trista Hamsmith. The battery had been in her body for over 30 hours at that point, Hamsmith estimates, burning through her esophagus and trachea. 
The damage would prove irreversible. Reese was hospitalized for several weeks and underwent several complicated surgeries, her mother testified. She was 18 months old on Dec. 17, 2020, when she died.
In the weeks and months after her crushing loss, friends of Trista Hamsmith’s talked about how she could honor her daughter in a meaningful way. Getting a park named after her was one suggestion.
“No, I don’t want a park,” Hamsmith remembers thinking. “I want a law.”
Without knowing exactly where to begin but propelled by a sense of purpose, she made phone calls—first to local lawmakers, and then to state and federal representatives, to tell Reese’s story. She started a nonprofit advocacy group, Reese’s Purpose. She testified before Congress about Reese’s story and about the need for stronger protections from small batteries for all kids. 
“I was nervous . . . I don’t like for people to see me cry,” Hamsmith says. “But my whole mission was that other parents don’t have to know what it’s like to bury their kid.” 
When Reese’s Law passed Congress in 2022, support was unanimous. The law required the CPSC to create a new safety standard for strong packaging, secure battery compartments, and detailed warning labels on nontoy devices with button batteries. Consumer Reports safety experts supported both the federal law and the subsequent CPSC rule. 
Hamsmith has dedicated herself to raising awareness of the risk of button batteries among parents and increasing oversight of manufacturers and retailers. But she also knows how important it is to alert doctors. Reese’s Purpose is now funding the development of a medical device to be used in any doctor’s office that could quickly and easily detect a button battery in a child’s body without an X-ray. 
When she learned the results of Consumer Reports’ product evaluation, Hamsmith said that it was “sickening” to hear how many dangerous items remain out there for sale today. 
Part of the problem is that older products that aren’t compliant with the CPSC rule have been allowed to stay on the market. But Hamsmith says she is confident the marketplace will get safer over time as old products sell out or are taken off the shelves. As for companies that sell unsafe items in violation of Reese’s Law, she says, “My message is, you will get busted, you will get caught. Our children’s lives matter more than your bottom line.”
And while the CPSC’s current button-battery standard doesn’t apply to toys, a promising new rule has been proposed that would bring the existing toy requirements up to the same strong standard that applies to all other products. So, for instance, the safety of battery compartments in toys would have to be tested more rigorously to make sure they won’t break or pop open in real-world scenarios, such as when the product is dropped on the floor. Consumer Reports safety experts expressed their support for the proposed toy rule, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the advocacy group Kids in Danger, and several other advocacy groups. 
The Toy Association has expressed the industry’s support for Reese’s Law but argues that a new rule specifically for toys is unnecessary because there is already an adequate standard in place and an established process for amending it. “CPSC’s proposed rulemaking would serve to unilaterally forgo the established and well-regarded consensus standards process, already underway,” Joan Lawrence, the Toy Association’s senior vice president of standards and regulatory affairs, wrote to CR in an emailed statement.
The CPSC says that the agency is in the process of reviewing comments to the proposed rule. CPSC staff declined to comment on the specific products CR evaluated for this article but said that “manufacturers and importers that fail to comply with all the requirements of Reese’s Law—including standards associated with battery compartments, warnings on the product, its packaging and in instructions and manuals—risk enforcement action including civil penalties up to $120K per knowing violation.”
CR safety experts say that responsibility also lies with the retailers, websites, and apps that sell button-battery-powered products. They have the power to take risky products off the shelves—whether old or new, and from whatever category.
“Whether people shop online or in person, convenience should never come at the expense of a child’s safety,” Knight says. “Online marketplaces have an opportunity to lead by putting stronger measures in place to ensure that only products that meet the strongest current standards are sold on their platforms.”
CR bought almost all of the products in our evaluation from Amazon, with a few ordered from other online retailers, including Home Depot and Target. Amazon, which sold us nine of the products in the “most dangerous” category above, told CR that all of the products we flagged have now either been removed from the site or are in compliance, or that their compliance is under investigation.
“We require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws, including Reese’s Law,” an Amazon spokesperson told CR. “We continuously monitor our store, and if we discover a product was undetected by our automated checks, we address the issue immediately, refine our controls and remove noncompliant products.” 
Home Depot spokesperson Beth Marlowe told CR that the retailer has now stopped selling the LumaBase red tea lights after the problem was brought to their attention. The battery compartment in the one product we bought from Target was secure.
Photo: Kathryn Marx/Consumer Reports Photo: Kathryn Marx/Consumer Reports
Button batteries are ubiquitous in consumer products, and it may not be reasonable to banish them entirely from your home. But if you live with young children or elderly or cognitively impaired people, it’s a good idea to evaluate the battery-powered products you already own, and be smart about any new ones you buy. 
Button batteries are dangerous to kids, but these three tips from @TheRealDrDarria will help keep your kids safe. CR is here to help you make safe choices for your home—tap the link in our bio or visit CR.org/drdarria for a special discounted CR membership. #kidsafety #batterysafety #parentsoftiktok #parentingtips
Lauren Kirchner
Lauren Kirchner is an investigative reporter on the special projects team at Consumer Reports. She has been with CR since 2022, covering product safety. She has previously reported on algorithmic bias, criminal justice, and housing for the Markup and ProPublica, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2017. Send her tips at lauren.kirchner@consumer.org and follow her on Twitter @lkirchner.
Trending in Button Batteries
Baby Safety Tips ER Doctors Want You to Know
We respect your privacy. All email addresses you provide will be used just for sending this story.

source