​I Burned My Finger on the Novelty USB-Powered Cup Warmer I Got for Christmas

Christmas: the time of year people buy gadgets they would never consider purchasing for themselves, but for some reason think you might appreciate as a gift. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Tech can be painful.

I found this out just now when I tried out my new novelty gadget: a USB-powered cup warmer. Yep, that's a thing that ​exists.

To be fair, I must be exactly the target user of this first-world-problem-solving product. I spend pretty much all of my time on my laptop, I drink an awful lot of tea, and I like tech stuff. Really, the person who bought me this showed remarkable knowledge of my personal preferences and daily routine. I love you, Mum.

The cup warmer basically works like a heated coaster. You plug the wire into the USB port on your laptop (it's compatible with PC and Mac), press the button on the side of the novelty cookie-shaped device, and it heats up. The packaging claimed it would keep my drink up to 60 degrees Celcius, but I wasn't convinced; my coffee seemed to cool just as quickly as it usually would. That's when I did the obvious stupid thing and touched the hot plate to see if it was, in fact, hot.

It was only after that I looked again at the box it came in. "Warning: Surface can get very hot," it proclaimed. "DO NOT touch hot surfaces, handle plastic sides only." And the inevitable disclaimer, "THIS IS NOT A TOY."

In the interest of science, I tried to measure quite how hot the surface was, but I only had a medical thermometer and as soon as it passed the low-40 mark it just started bleeping and warning that my fever was way too high.

My boo-boo was very minor; I required no medical attention and it left no mark. But I got off lightly; I'm certainly not alone in foolish behaviour around gadgets over the festive period. The NHS p​oints out that while the death rate in general rises in winter due to seasonal illnesses, there's a significant increase specifically over the Christmas holidays, and many of that number are the result of accidents. That includes traffic accidents, fires, and other commonplace hazards that make up the festive de​ath trap, but hospital trips can be the result of less obvious risks.

Hazards in the home, the NHS explain​s elsewhere, are easily created by "a cocktail of excitement, stress, tiredness and alcohol." According to its report, over 80,000 people in the UK "need hospital treatment for injuries such as falls, cuts and burns during the festive period." Three-hundred fifty people a year are specifically injured by Christmas tree lights.​

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents suggests more gadget-related Christ​mas perils, many of which result from pure idiocy. "Remember to buy batteries for toys that need them—that way you won't be tempted to remove batteries from smoke alarms," it advises. Then there are the​ classics, like testing batteries on your tongue, choking on button batteries, and trying to open packaging with knives.

And I imagine many people, like me, make the (hopefully not-quite-)fatal error of casually brushing aside instructions to new gizmos. If I had read these, I may also have realised why my drink was cold even though the cup warmer managed to singe my finger. "Ideal for flat bottomed mugs or metal cups," they advise. I was using a glass mug that, to be fair to the heater, had a good half-inch thick glass base for any heat to get trapped in before it reached the liquid, plus it's raised around the edges.

That said, the Amazon re​views don't exactly inspire me with confidence that it will perform much better even in ideal circumstances. And what kind of person is in a position to have such techno-forward life hacks as a USB-powered cup warmer but drink out of tin cups? "Complete waste of the world's resources to design, manufacture, market, sell, transport, because it will shortly end up in my local landfill," wrote one reviewer.

In conclusion: Always read the instructions. And remember to dispose of any unwanted electronics in an environmentally sound​ manner.