I used to not care that much about fire risks of cheap electric devices (apart from lithium batteries like here because they seem to be inherently volatile/dangerous) until one day few years back when a faulty wire of a $3 iPhone charger from AliExpress caught fire on my desk.
I probably wouldn't have noticed it until way too late if my cat hadn't happened to sleep next to it on the same table. He had a sudden scare of the fire and jumped quickly off the table. It looked so weird that I went and looked what he was afraid of and saw flames coming of the half-melted charger and the wire. The desk was full of paper and junk, it was seconds away from catching fire in a way that I probably couldn't put down anymore as I live in a flat and don't own a fire estinquisher. (We only have a fire blanket in the kitchen but that wouldn't have helped much.)
I will never save few bucks from charger wires or chargers or power banks like these ever again -- it's just not worth it!
That all said, don't have any experience from Anker devices myself but in my experience you typically get what you pay for when buying cheap.
Anker's not really 'buying cheap' IMO, it sort of started that way but quickly got a good reputation and now it's a household name and a brand that will do a recall.
Buying cheap would be the drop-shipped 'brands' that exist for all of 5 minutes. TNAHEK or FGUYJ or similar unpronounceable all-caps nonsense. (Or 'GoodLife' or 'SuccessDream' or something.)
Why not buy a fire extinguisher? I've been a renter most my life, and I've never lived a place where the landlord supplied fire extinguishers, but they've also never complained about me supplying my own.
That's a good question. This might be some kind of a "fireplace delusion" [1] kind of a thing, I've never really even considered it. I've never seen anyone have a fire extinguisher in a flat here in Finland, that might also be one reason. I guess that wouldn't be the worst purchase to make but I'd still much rather try not to put myself in a situation where I'd need one :)
I probably wouldn't have noticed it until way too late if my cat hadn't happened to sleep next to it on the same table. He had a sudden scare of the fire and jumped quickly off the table. It looked so weird that I went and looked what he was afraid of and saw flames coming of the half-melted charger and the wire. The desk was full of paper and junk, it was seconds away from catching fire in a way that I probably couldn't put down anymore as I live in a flat and don't own a fire estinquisher. (We only have a fire blanket in the kitchen but that wouldn't have helped much.)
I will never save few bucks from charger wires or chargers or power banks like these ever again -- it's just not worth it!
That all said, don't have any experience from Anker devices myself but in my experience you typically get what you pay for when buying cheap.