Cooluli has recalled roughly 250,000 of its compact minifridges after reports that an internal switch can overheat, short-circuit, and start a fire. The recall, announced through federal safety regulators, covers popular 10-liter and 15-liter models sold for years online and through Amazon. Rather than replace the units outright, the company is shipping affected owners a free repair kit designed to neutralize the fault.
The mode-selector switch at the center of the recall
The defect involves the switch that lets the minifridge toggle between cooling and warming modes, a dual-function design that made the coolers popular for everything from skincare to snacks and beverages. On some older units, that selector switch can overheat, and when it does it can short-circuit and ignite. The result is a combined fire and burn hazard in a small appliance often kept on a desk, a nightstand, or a bedroom shelf.
Because the coolers are compact and frequently left plugged in around the clock, a switch failure can occur in close proximity to fabrics, bedding, or other flammable material. That placement is part of what elevates the concern: a minifridge is not treated the way a large kitchen appliance is, and owners may not think of a small desktop cooler as a potential source of fire.
Nineteen incident reports and property damage
The recall follows a series of real-world failures. The company received at least 19 reports of the products smoking, sparking, burning, melting, overheating, or catching fire, and those incidents caused property damage totaling more than $80,000, according to the CPSC recall notice. One customer reported smoke inhalation.
The absence of a reported death does not lessen the underlying hazard. A cluster of nearly 20 incidents involving smoke, sparks, and open flame is the kind of pattern that typically prompts formal action, and the reported property losses suggest several of these failures went beyond a brief scare. The single smoke-inhalation report is a reminder that a smoldering appliance can pose a health risk even when it does not produce a large fire.
How to tell if a unit is affected
The recall involves 10-liter and 15-liter Cooluli minifridges with a specific hardware signature: an internal power supply and two power input ports on the back, one AC and one DC, rather than a single DC port. That two-port configuration is the key identifier separating recalled units from newer versions that use a single input.
The distinction matters because Cooluli sells its coolers in a range of sizes and styles, and not every model carries the defect. Owners are being asked to look at the back of the unit and check for the paired AC and DC ports before assuming their cooler is either safe or affected. That physical check is more reliable than model name alone, since the same product families spanned the transition to the newer single-port design.
Sold on Amazon over nearly six years
The recalled minifridges reached a large audience through direct online sales and one of the largest marketplaces in the country. The units were sold on Cooluli’s own website and on Amazon between January 2019 and October 2024, at prices ranging from about $80 to $120, as detailed in an account of the recall published by Parade.
A sales window stretching across nearly six years helps explain the quarter-million-unit total. Low-cost lifestyle gadgets sold heavily online tend to accumulate in large numbers, and they often change hands as gifts or secondhand purchases, which complicates any effort to reach every current owner. Many of the affected coolers are likely still in daily use, given their modest price and long service life.
A repair kit rather than a refund
Cooluli’s remedy is a free repair kit sent to affected customers. The kit includes a replacement DC power cord and a permanent sticker to cover the AC port, effectively steering the appliance toward DC-only operation and taking the problematic AC pathway out of the equation. The company, founded in Brooklyn, New York, has posted the recall details on its website and is urging owners to stop using the affected units immediately in the meantime.
Covering the AC port and switching to a single power path is a targeted fix aimed at the root of the overheating problem, but it depends on owners actually receiving and installing the kit. Until that happens, the safest course for anyone with a two-port unit is to unplug it and set it aside, treating the cooler as an active hazard rather than waiting to see whether their particular unit fails.
Small appliances, outsized fire risk
The Cooluli recall is part of a wider run of fire-hazard actions involving cooling appliances, and it highlights how a defect in an inexpensive gadget can translate into a large-scale safety problem. Minifridges occupy a peculiar risk category: cheap enough to be bought casually, small enough to be forgotten, and left running continuously in the rooms where people sleep and work.
For anyone who bought a Cooluli 10-liter or 15-liter cooler in the 2019-to-2024 window, the practical step is to flip the unit around and check for the two rear power ports. If both an AC and a DC input are present, the guidance is to stop using it and request the free repair kit. The switch defect at the heart of this recall is invisible in normal operation, which is exactly why regulators and the manufacturer moved to reach owners before more units failed.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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