Roughly 3 million air fryers sold under five different store and house brands — Cosori, Insignia, Power XL, Magic Chef, and Secura — have been recalled for fire and burn hazards over the past several years, meaning a low-priced air fryer bought at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, or Amazon may be wearing a different label than the one that made recall headlines, based on CPSC recall records spanning all five brands.
Key Points
- Cosori (recalled by Atekcity): about 2 million units, plus 250,000 in Canada and 21,000 in Mexico; 205 reports of fire, burning, melting, overheating, or smoking, including 10 burn injuries and 23 property-damage reports.
- Insignia (Best Buy): 187,400 units recalled in March 2024 for overheating handles and shattering glass doors, on top of 635,000 units recalled in 2022 for overheating that caused 68 U.S. fire or burning reports and 2 injuries.
- Power XL (Empower Brands): about 319,000 units recalled for a plastic basket connector that can break and cause burns.
- Magic Chef (Newair): about 11,750 units recalled for overheating risk.
- Secura: about 6,400 units recalled for a wire connection that can overheat.
Why the Same Defect Keeps Showing Up
Air fryers from multiple brands share compressed internal wiring and heating elements packed into a small countertop footprint, and several of the recalled models trace back to nearly identical root causes: a wire connection or crimp that overheats under repeated use, or a plastic component near the heating chamber that degrades faster than the electronics around it. Cosori’s recall, the largest by unit count, centered on a wire connection that “can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards,” according to CPSC — language that echoes almost word for word the hazard descriptions issued for Secura’s and Magic Chef’s much smaller recalls the same year.
What Consumers Should Do
- Check the model number printed on the bottom or back of any air fryer against each brand’s recall list, since store brands are frequently manufactured by the same contract factories under different names.
- Stop using any matching unit immediately and register for the free replacement, refund, or replacement part offered by each manufacturer.
- Register newly purchased small appliances with the manufacturer, since recall notices are typically emailed only to registered buyers.
With five separate brands and six separate recalls behind the 3 million figure, the pattern points to an industry-wide manufacturing shortcut rather than one company’s isolated defect — which is exactly why checking a model number matters more than trusting a brand name printed on the box.
