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Why Every Country Has a Different Plug (2009)
- dogma1138 11y agoWasn't that the consensus was that many countries (especially after WW1, and WW2) adopted different plugs to control the import of appliances? When plugs weren't easily replaceable with kettle type cables and where you couldn't just buy a plug in any home depot and change it yourself it seemed like it was a very good tactic to restrict the grey/black import market.
- caio1982 11y agoI don't understand why Brazil in that map is shown as having plugs of type either K or I (the purple one). I have never seen these here. Now, as for the special local mess that we love, types A and B are sort of "legacy" ones and you would find them mostly in power extensions cords and such so people could use imported American electronics in the past. It wasn't even unusual for people to take the ground pin out of type B plugs so they would be compatible with other "regular" A plugs. Pretty much everyone has used (or still uses) types C, E and F in Brazil. I would dare to call these de facto standards here. But as the article says we have officially adopted IEC 60906 and as such every new building, house or whatever that has been built in the last few years have this plug everywhere. Not everybody likes them (engineers!) but I think most of the folks in the country simple don't give a shit. The thing is that some places [1] mention this standard is type N, but I have been to Switzerland and all my Brazilian IEC 60906 plugs worked 100% in every single try across the country so I would like to know how compatibles are types J and IEC 60906 (well, type N?). They seemed absolutely compatible in every way to me. PS: I have never seen type O in Thailand myself, but perhaps in touristic areas they simply use worldwide known plugs instead or just leave some adapters around? IIRC most of the time I would find the European types of plugs there. [1] http://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/ http://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/
- pdpi 11y agoHaving moved to the UK a few years ago, I have to say that, bulky though they may be, I've grown quite fond of the British plugs. Switches on the sockets, fuses on the plugs, sockets that mechanically require the ground pin to make contact (in theory, anyway. You can have a plastic ground pin...) before the live pins enter the socket. There's actually a fairly large amount of security built into them!
- lisper 11y agoSure, but the cost in terms of wasted space is enormous. In the U.S. I can fit a USB power adapter in my pocket. In the U.K. such an adapter will often be larger than the device it's powering.
- icebraining 11y agoThey're not so bad: http://www.ebellking.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/a/p/apple-adapter-100-240v-1000ma-uk-plug-usb-power-charger-for-apple-ipod-iphone2g-3g-white-6342854713702182982.jpg http://www.ebellking.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image...
- pdpi 11y agoThey can even get a bit cleverer: http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MGRL2B/A/apple-5w-usb-power-adapter-folding-pins http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MGRL2B/A/apple-5w-usb-p...
- Freaky 11y agoFor USB there's always a MU - very compact folded up: http://www.themu.co.uk/ http://www.themu.co.uk/
- lisper 11y agoCool. Now how do I charge my laptop? And my camera battery?
- skissane 11y agoChina is striped to show them as using two different standards. Only time I've ever been to China, was last year I spent a week in Shenzhen, and all the plugs I saw looked like upside-down Australian. I know there are some slight differences in pin length and so on, but my Australian laptop and phone adapters worked fine. So if one colour is type I, what is the other colour?
- azurezyq 11y agoIt's non-polarized two pin type A as in US, used for everything which does not need a ground pin.
- gozo 11y agoThe multi outlet is pretty common, at least in hotels and offices in major cities. http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/60186449669_1/Saipwell_International_Standard_China_Wholesale_White_Wall.jpg_200x200.jpg http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/60186449669_1/Saipwell_Inte...
- skissane 11y agoYes, now I remember that in my hotel in Shenzhen. Have seen the same thing in South Korea too.
- p_eter_p 11y agoIs there any research on the net cost of this confusion? Or is it just one of those things where we can easily quantify the switching costs, so we don't bother with the cost of the status quo? It's like right hand drive cars, which seems like an easy win to get rid of, but are so wrapped up in culture that we are pretty much stuck with them.
- davidw 11y agoIt's certainly a PITA if you move around the wrong places in Europe. We had to buy a bunch of new cords when we moved between Italy and Austria.
- davidw 11y agoAs a computer guy, I was always a fan of the 3-in-a-row Italian ones, because you could attach a lot of them to a power strip without too much hassle.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoInteresting. I'd like something similar but more compact, like a lightning/usbc port, can be inserted in either direction.
- klagermkii 11y agoTechnically South Africa has also switched to the newer IEC 60906/Type N/Brazil plug. Going to be years and years until any sizeable number of houses have it as standard, and since appliance makers need to target the majority of the market (who are still on the old plug) you don't see them switch either.
- robk 11y agoPlus, those darned oversized three prongs in ZA. I've only seen those in ZA and Namibia. It's confusing since the Indian ones look the same from a distance but the ZA ones have a fatter third prong.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoWhen I was in Thailand I saw sockets that could take both type A/B and type C/E/F plugs, they had holes that were cut out to allow both to fit in.
- hwstar 11y agoDon't walk barefoot in a dark room with BS1363 plugs prongs up on the floor.
- johansch 11y agoI'd love to see the EU tackle harmonizing this one. If nothing else for the amusement value.
- CrLf 11y agoIt's already pretty harmonized in continental Europe. And some of the differences are handled by the plugs/sockets themselves (eg. Type F plugs with both ground contacts on the sides and a hole for Type E sockets).
- johansch 11y agoWell, there's the UK. And Denmark. A few years ago I was in Copenhagen and realized I had forgotten my mac charger somewhere. Went to some mac store and bought a charger that surprisingly had a monstrosity attached to it that resembled this: http://www.internationalconfig.com/prod_shot/78140-BLK.jpg http://www.internationalconfig.com/prod_shot/78140-BLK.jpg
- dogma1138 11y agoWith the exception of the UK the EU standard (2 prong) non-grounded plug should fit any socket within the EU and the grounded ones fit pretty much all of them with the exception of Italy/UK.
- mavhc 11y agoLuckily USB Power Delivery will provide up to 100W, standard across the world, that's enough for everything that's not a heater/motor.
- macavity23 11y agoThis! USB is the only hope for a universal standard. It's already there for all personal items.
- tsotha 11y agoThat's what I think the end game will be. Either this or some later standard will catch on worldwide for consumer electronics, and at that point it'll be a lot cheaper to standardize the higher-wattage.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- repsilat 11y agoIt's easy enough to change over -- just 1. Mandate that everyone in the country install universal (or dual-interface) plugs. Fairly low-cost, and pretty safe. 2. After 50 years, when all plug sockets will probably have been replaced, pick a plug standard and use that. Like user pdpi, I've fallen in love with the UK sockets since moving here, with the Au/NZ sockets coming in a distant second place. I've never had any trouble with either sort falling out of the socket, something I can't say about the American or European standards.
- kwhitefoot 11y agoHow does a European Schuko plug fall out? The only time I can remember such a thing happening in 30 years of living in Norway is with obsolete non-grounded sockets. My usual problem is that there is really very little to grab hold of on the Schuko/CEE plugs so that they can be hard to pull out.
- linkydinkandyou 11y ago"jacked voltages up to 240, because, you know, MORE POWER." and "By the time people started to realize that 240v power might not be such a bad idea..." Well, the folks at Gizmodo don't know the difference between Voltage and Power.
- gcb0 11y agoas someone who used the IEC standard in brazil: it is complete rubish. you end up with almost 7 variations of the damn thing. it is the only country where you need adapters in the same house! also, it got 'adopted' without any consideration for the people. suddenly, the standard changed. everyone was pissed, but nobody wanted to get fines in new buildings. and more ironically, the OLD standard, was compatible with europe and USA and japan! it was the perfect standard for IEC to adopt, not the other way around.
- greggman 11y agoJapanese and USA plugs are similar but in actual application they are somewhat different. 3 prong plugs (for example the kind on every desktop computer and monitor in the USA) are not very common. My computers and monitors, fridge, oven, didn't have 3 prong plugs. The computers and monitors instead the came with a 3rd cable you can optionally attach for ground. http://www.aim-ele.co.jp/products/power-cable/images/powercable-big.jpg http://www.aim-ele.co.jp/products/power-cable/images/powerca... Most extension cords and power strips only have 2 slots (not 3). http://www.yodobashi.com/%E3%83%91%E3%82%BD%E3%82%B3%E3%83%B3-%E9%9B%BB%E6%BA%90%E3%82%BF%E3%83%83%E3%83%97/ct/19767_500000000000000201/ http://www.yodobashi.com/%E3%83%91%E3%82%BD%E3%82%B3%E3%83%B... Some of them lock the plug in. You insert the plug about 30 degrees off and then twist and the plug gets locked in which solves the fall out problem people complain about in the USA. http://www.askul.co.jp/p/8430652/ http://www.askul.co.jp/p/8430652/ I like the UK ones best