App will help protect UK Homes from Fires

App created to alert users of product recalls wants to raise awareness of the potential dangers of not checking for faulty appliances 

• 90 per cent of adults in the UK don’t know how many fires are caused by household appliances every year 

• Whilst 83 per cent of UK adults believe it is important to check household goods for product recalls, 60 per cent have not checked 

• Of the 40 per cent that have checked their goods for recalls, over half have not done so for more than two years 

• Infoo has launched a free app that alerts users of recalls on their home appliances 

• Users upload the product label and the app checks the data against current and previous recalls 

London, 13 June 2022: Every week in England, there are at least 35 house fires caused by faulty white goodsi, yet a YouGov survey commissioned by Infoo has shown that 90 per cent of adults in the UK are unaware of the dangers posed by household appliances every year. Products that may have been recalled because they are faulty, are still being used daily in many homes across the country posing potential dangers to families. 

The survey showed 83 per cent of adults across the UK understand the importance of checking products to see if they had been recalled, only two fifths (40 per cent) of adults have ever checked their products for recall notices. Nearly two thirds (60 per cent) of adults have never checked if their goods have been recalled by manufacturers. Of those who have not checked, 41 per cent say that it is because they don’t know how to. 

Infoo has launched a free app that allows you to easily check appliances are safe by uploading a picture of the product label and automatically cross checks your white goods against its database of recalls. 

The Infoo app alerts users if any of the products they upload have been recalled, at any point, by the manufacturer and provides users with details on the next steps. The app is free to use and could potentially mitigate dangerous situations caused by faulty goods. 

The Infoo app also includes an artificial intelligence (AI) driven bot with a ‘chat with us’ function which uses conversational AI to help process user troubleshooting queries using natural language processing (NLP) and direct them to appropriate how-to guides and resources. The AI technology can respond to enquiries made on WhatsApp and has the capacity to work with Amazon’s Alexa. Infoo is currently in the process of incorporating the Alexa feature into the app. 

Paul Livett, CEO of Infoo, commented: “Our main priority at Infoo is providing people with the tools to keep their homes and their families safe. Our research has found that, whilst adults across the UK are aware of the importance of ensuring their products haven’t been recalled, a lot of them don’t know where to start when looking for this information. 

i As per electricalsafetyfirst.org statistics for 2019 from electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk. According to research from Electrical Direct, this number increased to 43 fires a week in 2020 https://www.electricaldirect.co.uk/blog/which-appliances-cause-the-most-fires-at-home 

“Infoo is committed to providing an easy to use service, supported by a huge database of recall information which will alert users to any existing or future registered faulty goods in their home.” 

The Infoo app will be free to download from major app stores. 

ENDS 

For further information, please visit our website at www.infoo.com or contact: 

BlytheRay

Tim Blythe 

Megan Ray 

Alice McLaren 

Madeleine Gordon-Foxwell 

+44 (0) 207 138 3205 

infoo@blytheray.com