OnePlus, long the master of ingenious, headline-grabbing publicity stunts, is at it again. If you’re in London on Thursday, October 3, and your phone is about to run out of battery, send a tweet OnePlus’ way, and the company will send out its “rescue vehicle,” to save the day. This being OnePlus, the rescue vehicle is, of course, a fire engine.
Specifically, at least based on the promotional image on the company’s Twitter, Facebook, and forum pages, it’s a Dennis Sabre fire engine with added OnePlus and Warp Charge branding, and apparently fewer hoses. The hoses, one must presume, have been replaced with OnePlus’ trademark red USB Type-C cables ready to charge up your phone.
The idea is to tweet OnePlus with your location and a description of your battery emergency, tag it with the #WarpChargeSOS hashtag, and the team will be dispatched to deal with your crisis. London’s real fire brigade would probably take a very dim view of the OnePlus fire vehicle racing through the streets with the siren blaring, so expect it to arrive after a sensible drive following the rules of the road.
Warp Charge is the name given to OnePlus’ proprietary fast-charging system, which had a big upgrade on the new OnePlus 7T. The speed is now even faster, taking the battery to full in about an hour, or 70% capacity in 30 minutes. What’s more, a lot of the technology that makes it possible is inside the battery rather than the charging block, so if you own a recent OnePlus phone and are upgrading to the OnePlus 7T, your current charger will return the same charging speed and become a handy backup.
What OnePlus isn’t saying is whether the fire engine batter rescue service is for OnePlus device owners only. What will happen if you call the WarpChargeSOS team and show them a Samsung Galaxy S10, or worse, an iPhone 11? Is the OnePlus fire engine equipped with a Lightning cable? We have asked OnePlus if it’ll still save lives in this scenario, and the excellent news is it will. OnePlus U.K. responded on Twitter saying:
“All citizens are equal! Everyone deserves to experience the speed of Warp Charge. Give us a location and we’ll solve your battery emergency!”
The OnePlus WarpChargeSOS fire engine is patrolling London on October 3, and will then visit Amsterdam and Utrecht on October 5, and then Helsinki on October 9. The OnePlus 7T is available to buy now, and there could be more to come from OnePlus on October 10 too, so expect plenty of OnePlus marketing shenanigans over the next few weeks.