When it comes to home electricity, we’re still living in the 1950’s.
Take a look at the plugs in your house. I live in a two year old house — and yet, there are receptacles sticking out of the wall with large faceplates. They seem like an afterthought.
Worse, the plugs are freaking huge and clumsy. Three monstrous metal pins which only allow two plugs per unit. Not surprising since they were designed in an era when computers with the power to calculate 2+2 took up the size of a room.
But we’re so used to it, we hardly think about improving them.
This is what I would like to see: a new standard plug similar to Apple’s MagSafe technology. If you have an Apple laptop, you know the beauty of this technology.
The plug is tiny — about the size of your index fingernail. It’s magnetic, so it clips right on and comes off with a slight tug. It has a small light on the plug to tell you if there’s power and if it’s charging. And as far as I can tell, you can’t be electrocuted with it.
You could fit 18 of these plugs on a wall receptacle in the same amount of space as we use for two. Not that you’d need that many — 6 would be sufficient.
Could someone please make this happen?
Update: Looks like someone is working on a better universal plug called Green Plug. Seems like a step in the right direction.
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32 Comments
i have a macbook, and i really do appreciate it, it has saved my laptop many many times, and i hope that there will be something like what you say, also woooooooo!!!! first!!!!
Problem is that this is DC system you are talking and house is on AC. Higher voltage AC is less loss but brings other considerations. Basically it is a trade-off.
Yeah I didn’t get into that, but there could be ways to do it — even if it was putting DC ports in the house so we could lose all our power bricks. I bet 80% of things people plugin are DC these days — everything other than lights & appliances.
However, I bet there’s a way to make AC plugs better.
I can just see having one of these for my vacuum cleaner. It already comes loose at too slight a tug.
There could be an optional clip to hold it, I suppose — but seems to me I’d rather have the plug come out if there was a tug on the cord for a vacuum cleaner — much better that than the receptacle be pulled from the wall! ;)
Just make stronger magnets for things like vacuum cleaners.
I’m sure that there are ways it could be made better, and that if a new standard were designed today, it would be quite different. Some factors to consider:
Household AC electricity is 120 V RMS, which is much higher than the DC used for electronics (typically 5 or 12 V). That means the spacing between contacts has to be greater, and the insulation thicker. Maybe not as big as they are now, but bigger than the low power DC stuff to which you are comparing it.
Child safety would probably be a big consideration in a complete redesign.
Low power DC outlets for electronics sounds good, but more work needs to be done first in standardizing power requirements.
“Vampire” power use – stuff you don’t even realize is using power, like your stereo when it is “off,” but not really off because it needs to be alive to pick up a signal from the remote, should be limited in a re-design.
Wikipedia has decent information on the variety of plugs and sockets now in use. In the US, the most common are the two-prong NEMA 1-15 and the three-prong NEMA 5-15.
Err, I don’t think so. First off, one of the biggest uses of “vampire” power is leaving an AC-DC adapter plugged in – even if your cell phone/laptop/Nintendo/microcontroller is not connected to it (remember that it’s still maintaining the 19 volt difference, even if nothing’s connected to it). Also, notice how hot that little box on your laptop power cord gets? That’s all wasted energy, inefficiencies in the AC-DC conversion process. Until more research is done, DC power through a house just won’t work.
And then, as you mentioned, you need to standardize the voltage requirements for electronics: the Super Nintendo required 5V, I believe, my laptop needs 19. How do you reconcile these?
That’s where the Green Plug tech comes in, I think. Or something similar.
But I agree it needs more research, I’m just hoping it’ll be done soon. :)
Where is Nikola Tesla when you really need him?
Working on wireless matter transfer. He’s not dead, y’know…that was a big cover-up.
Check this out: Inductive charging
I think the bigger problem would just be compatibility. No one is willing to make a new outlet until enough companies are willing to make a product that can sue that new outlet. And companies aren’t going to make a product that uses a new outlet until enough people have the new outlet to make it worth while.
It’s one of those self propelling cycles. Houses are built with x outlet because y country uses that outlet. All electronics produced for that country will use x outlet. If someone builds a house with new outlets, you’ve got a house that can’t use any of the electronics in the country. If a company releases something with a new plug, you’ve got a piece of equipment that no one in the country can use.
Without severe use of adapters, at least.
True, the plugs are a hangover from the ‘old days’ – when power consumption was bigger.
Small connectors are fine when you are just charging batteries, or for low wattage devices.
Probably not good for devices like kettle, toasters, heaters, air conditioners etc. which draw quite large amounts of power. Even a decent gaming desktop PC has 800w power supply – not the sort of thing the Mac connector can handle safely.
I wonder if anything has happened with the Green Plug idea. I haven’t heard much about it in a year or so.
Interesting, hadn’t seen that before. Here’s the website:
http://www.greenplug.us/
Sounds like they’re trying to do something like what I’m talking about.
Well, no. Their effort is directed at low voltage electronics. It has nothing to do with redesigning AC plugs and sockets.
There are so many devices that could be powered by DC (rather then DC by way of a AC transformer) that it may be a better way to start. Image almost everything on your computer desk (except maybe the computer) being powered from a GreenPlug enabled UPS. I don’t have to many things within 5 feet of me at the moment that either don’t already or could run off DC.
There was a TED Talk a while back about plugs that would turn themselves off when pulled from the outlet.
A universal plug would be nice, but probably not practical. A problem w/ a small mag type adapter would be high voltage/high amp devices (hair dryers, a/c, etc.) overheating, arcing, etc. At 120 V, & especially 220 V in other parts of the world, safety is the biggest concern.
The green plug sounds like a nice idea in principle, but is not practical considering it would have to handle high voltage/high current devices. It in itself would use a lot of energy, negating the whole “phantom power elimination” thing.
Note that most of the electrical use – and the more “bare essential” stuff – in your home is either runs AC directly (anything with a motor – refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, driers, vacuum cleaners) or it doesn’t matter whether you’re using AC or DC (water heaters, ranges, toasters) – though you might use natural gas for some of the devices in the second group. So the current (hah!) plug system is actually quite well-designed, and not particularly wasteful.
It could be made smaller, but I’m not seeing much point in doing so, other than being able to say, “Look we made it smaller!”
Well it could be done, perhaps as not as small as the magsafe, but still smaller than usual.
When it comes to safety, the socket would just have to sense when the plug is in, before it lets any power through. To make sure the plug doesn’t come off by accident, since it would be magnetic, why not integrate a small electromagnet in to the plug? So when you turn the power on, the plug is like it was glued to the socket. And when you turn the power off, the plug practically falls off, or if you want reverse the polarity of the electromagnet and kick the plug off the socket.
*puts his EE hat on*
I’ve often thought about creating a DC voltage distribution system, or a lower voltage AC system myself. While it’s a good one, there are a few faults here with the idea. First off is the sheer range of voltages of devices. My Lenovo laptop is 20V, MacBook 15V, and all the devices around me are anywhere from 15VAC to 5V. To be most efficient you’d have to provide a rail at each voltage, using DC-DC conversion at each point is less efficient. The next is plug standardization, or the lack of it. There’s a lucrative business in selling AC/car adapters and the like. That’s never going to go away in favor of a standard plug. Next there are smart adapters. Both my Lenovo and MacBook use smart adapters. I’m not sure what they are doing, I haven’t bothered to dissect them or run them through a scope yet, but I’m sure with these you won’t be able to power the device without that data line.
Now, I’d definitely not want to replace my NEMA 5-15 or 1-15 plugs and sockets for something new. Unless there is some intelligence in the design and it saves a substantial amount of power, I don’t see a real need to change. While a Magsafe type plug is nice on a laptop, I would not want my desktop on something that can get kicked out, or vacuum cleaner, or TV, etc. These devices I want securely fastened to the wall, let the kick-proofing be on the device end of the cable, or mid-way, like with fryers and Mac notebooks. Another is the electrical connectors need to be able to conduct over 15A worth of current without going up in temperature. Even if one used something like a Magsafe, it’d still have to be quite large to handle the current. There’s also safety to keep in mind. You don’t want anyone to be able to stick their fingers into the socket and risk electrocution, breakaway magnetic systems tend to be very shallow, which could lead to easier electrocution. You could alleviate that by a switch (either physical or magnetic reed) but I don’t think codes would allow for that. Anyway, I think the NMEA 15 style connectors are fine for our mains voltages these days. I just wish there were more standards in the plug end. ;)
Are you suggesting my plan is not perfect?
;)
I wouldn’t much worry about the voltages.
The basis for the plug I am thinking about, is the Europlug 2.5 A/250 V unearthed, or its German/French 16 A/250 V unearthed variant. Because they are so universal.
http://kropla.com/!c.htm
The socket could be designed to accept normal europlugs, as well as the new ones, enabling sales even if there are only few appliances.
For appliances needing earthing, the L plug would be the basis.
http://kropla.com/!l.htm
For comparison, the NEMA 5-15 is this plug
http://kropla.com/!ab.htm
ffs…
Europlug is C
Nema plug is A&B
Great plug design article here:
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/a_look_at_plugs_12314.asp
I have the “Breville plug” at home and regularly use it – its great!
Coincidentally I was having the same thought just the other day.
I bought one of those new cordless phone systems with 4 handsets and 1 base station. I wanted to put a handset with it’s charging cradle in the bathroom. My wife nixed it because she didn’t want the big black power block and black wire messing up her decor.
Under my desk I have over a dozen of those stupid bricks and half a dozen power bars. It’s a big rats nest.
Cordless phone, USB hubs x2, Ethernet hub x 2, VPN router, DSL Modem, Label Printer, external diskdrives x 2, cell phone charger, Speakers for the computer, speakers for the iPod, cordless mouse charger.
If I ever build a house I’m going to prewire it with low voltage DC. If you have just 12, 9 and 5 volts your going to cover 90% of everything out there.
I’d design wall outlets with three or four sockets of each voltage in one outlet. Each voltage socket would be a different design so you can’t plug them in wrong and blow up your device.
Pro’s:
No F’n bricks,
You have small gauge power cords that you easily hide or bundle to be neat.
My guess is one big power converter would have less losses than a bunch of little ones.
Cheaper and easier to add wind or solar supply
Cheaper and easier to add battery backup.
Ready supply for LED emergency or mood lighting.
Hmm. Yeah, let’s come up with something that will require rewiring every home in America. What a good idea.
When it comes to home electricity, we’re still living in the 1950’s.
Lucky you, for some of us, when it comes to home lectricity, we’re still living in the 1700s
How many of you know just how much amperage is involved in high powered appliances?
These measly contact pins could never supply such enormous currents.
Get real, or get educated.
Just ditch the plug altogether.