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You most likely tried to draw too much current. The USB outlets on planes are usually limited to quite a low amperage—just barely enough to charge a single phon

by zoky 1y ago

You most likely tried to draw too much current. The USB outlets on planes are usually limited to quite a low amperage—just barely enough to charge a single phone. I once tried to plug a Steam Deck into one, not expecting it to charge the battery but at least keeping it from discharging too quickly, and the outlet ended up shutting off completely for the rest of the flight. Even the planes with 110 outlets are heavily current limited. I tried to plug in a USB charger and use it to charge a phone and tablet at the same time, and the outlet just shut off until I disconnected one of the devices.

deathanatos 1y ago
> The USB outlets I should have clarified that this was an A/C outlet, I guess. > Even the planes with 110 outlets are heavily current limited. I tried to plug in a USB charger and use it to charge a phone and tablet at the same time, and the outlet just shut off until I disconnected one of the devices. Perhaps, but if the outlet can't supply the current for typical/reasonable uses one might use an outlet for on a plane, and just shuts down, is there an outlet? Particularly if you never tell me the limits of the outlet. Ideally … that'd be up-front, but I sort of understand that to most people this is a minor part of the flight, so I'd probably settle for "written on the outlet". It'd just be cool to know if I'm going to be bored to tears once I'm tired of reading.
- zoky 1y ago
  Yeah, I agree it’s frustrating, but I can see why they do it. 500 passengers each drawing even 1 amp each would likely put a serious strain on the aircraft’s power capacity. I’ve taken to just assuming the outlets are useless and carrying a battery pack onboard. One decently sized battery pack can easily keep a laptop, phone, or whatever charged for pretty much any domestic flight, and two of them is more than plenty for international.
  - deathanatos 1y ago
    500 is quite a bit rounded up; perhaps there is an intercontinental jumbo that big, but let's just assume your bog standard domestic 737-foo, with probably 25% the passengers. I don't know that the average passenger draws 1A; most are drawing 0¹. The point is more that advertising "we have $service", but then delivering a quality of service for $service that amounts to "unusable for any real-world use case" is bullshit. But fine, power is too hopelessly complex to actually implement in a manner that would be useful to passengers. So the WiFi: my last flight was 99% packet loss, and 7,000ms+ ping times for the 1% that was delivered. Just making it through the idiotic MitM portal was a quest, but again the resultant service is utterly unusable. The legal principle I'd point to here is "fitness for a particular purpose". The service was sold, and when it was sold, there was, in the buyer's mind, the assumption that it was fit for a particular purpose: reasonable usage of WiFi mid flight (e.g., low bandwidth, tolerably high latency uses; I'm not expecting to be able to game or stream a movie) or to power a portable device one might find in the average person's carry-on. But it's just something between false advertising and enshittification. The airlines want to deliver a service, perhaps at one time they did, but they've not employed the people necessary to maintain it, and when the customer is shorted, there's zero recourse for the customer. ¹… of course, I end up being one of those drawing 0 since, you know, the fucking outlet is broken.

by zoky 1y ago

deathanatos 1y ago

> The USB outlets I should have clarified that this was an A/C outlet, I guess. > Even the planes with 110 outlets are heavily current limited. I tried to plug in a USB charger and use it to charge a phone and tablet at the same time, and the outlet just shut off until I disconnected one of the devices. Perhaps, but if the outlet can't supply the current for typical/reasonable uses one might use an outlet for on a plane, and just shuts down, is there an outlet? Particularly if you never tell me the limits of the outlet. Ideally … that'd be up-front, but I sort of understand that to most people this is a minor part of the flight, so I'd probably settle for "written on the outlet". It'd just be cool to know if I'm going to be bored to tears once I'm tired of reading.

zoky 1y ago
Yeah, I agree it’s frustrating, but I can see why they do it. 500 passengers each drawing even 1 amp each would likely put a serious strain on the aircraft’s power capacity. I’ve taken to just assuming the outlets are useless and carrying a battery pack onboard. One decently sized battery pack can easily keep a laptop, phone, or whatever charged for pretty much any domestic flight, and two of them is more than plenty for international.
- deathanatos 1y ago
  500 is quite a bit rounded up; perhaps there is an intercontinental jumbo that big, but let's just assume your bog standard domestic 737-foo, with probably 25% the passengers. I don't know that the average passenger draws 1A; most are drawing 0¹. The point is more that advertising "we have $service", but then delivering a quality of service for $service that amounts to "unusable for any real-world use case" is bullshit. But fine, power is too hopelessly complex to actually implement in a manner that would be useful to passengers. So the WiFi: my last flight was 99% packet loss, and 7,000ms+ ping times for the 1% that was delivered. Just making it through the idiotic MitM portal was a quest, but again the resultant service is utterly unusable. The legal principle I'd point to here is "fitness for a particular purpose". The service was sold, and when it was sold, there was, in the buyer's mind, the assumption that it was fit for a particular purpose: reasonable usage of WiFi mid flight (e.g., low bandwidth, tolerably high latency uses; I'm not expecting to be able to game or stream a movie) or to power a portable device one might find in the average person's carry-on. But it's just something between false advertising and enshittification. The airlines want to deliver a service, perhaps at one time they did, but they've not employed the people necessary to maintain it, and when the customer is shorted, there's zero recourse for the customer. ¹… of course, I end up being one of those drawing 0 since, you know, the fucking outlet is broken.