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Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter
Ian Lamont writes "Westinghouse is the first major electronics manufacturer that has publicly committed to using a 'smart power technology' that will let people use a single universal adapter to power their laptops, cell phones and other electronics. The universal adapters, which use a technology developed by a startup called Green Plug, will act like a hub that several devices can plug into, and will also shut off the power supply when the device is turned off or has finished charging. The first are expected to go on sale in early 2009 for under $100, according to Westinghouse's CTO. Eventually, Westinghouse and other manufacturers that use the technology could stop shipping adapters with their products, because customers may already have universal adapters at home. However, some manufacturers may not be inclined to use universal power adapters: the article notes Apple gets supplementary revenue from the sale of proprietary connectors for the iPod and other devices."
... and they want their idea back!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I was *this* close to finish building my collection of proprietary, non-interchangeable DC adapters!
proud caffeine whore
The cost to add the technology to a company's device is listed as US$2. The cost for a company to produce their own wall wart in China...probably less than US$2....and no licensing fees to worry about and no worries that the customer might not have a charger. This idea is going nowhere.
In this case, I think the Chinese government actually got it right. They've forced all cell phone manufacturers to provide a USB port for charging the phones. Seems like a reasonable standard to me.
Cheers,
About God damn time!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Does that mean that I have to un-plug my lappy to charge my cell, or maybe have a $100 "all-purpose" adapter in each room so I can power my lappy in the living room, charge my cellphone in the bedroom, have my portable radio playing in the kitchen, and all the other things that use power bricks all over the house?
Do I get multiple smart power units at a hundred a pop instead of the cheapo $2 ones I use now?
Will these fancy $100 units power multiple devices at the same time, each using a different voltage?
Will it really handle an 85 watt load for a loaded laptop plus the dozen other devices that need simultaneous power for operation/charging?
Wait a minute, my WiFi base, router my cable modem, my scanner, and who knows how many other "things" in my office all have wall warts powering them. How may devices will one of these $100 units actually handle?
Naw. I'll stick with my little cheap wall warts and a power strip with a switch...
--Tomas
Have been saying this for years. For 120 AC power there's a standard plug. Why do I have to have a dozen different transformer bricks underneath my desk to power all of my computer, network, and phone stuff?
Stupid ADB port...
What?
Salaries in China must be way up now... I have a reconfigurable power supply, and only cost me less than $20 a few years back then.
igo already has this technology today. You can get them at RadioShack, as well as online.
And just when I thought cell phones, at least, where starting to standardize on USB, which already has 'installed base'. In fact, other than the not-easily-removable battery on my iphone, about my only gripe is that to connect it to USB requires its dock cable - Apple should have put a mini-usb connector built right in.
A charging hub. I like it.
I hope the connector is small enough that it isn't conspicuous in thin devices like some cell phones.
If the connector is coaxial or safely reversible, bonus.
I have one of these; it's called a "Computer." Seriously - every necessary portable device I own charges through USB - my phone, my camera, my mp3 player, all of it.
Westinghouse is essentially trying to sell me a hundred dollar USB hub. That's progress for you.
So which Chinese consumer electronics company owns the Westinghouse brand name these days?
Funai?
Now I'm all for standardizing connectors when it's possible to also standardize voltage and other power charachteristics but frankly this just seems like a really bad idea.
For starters each green plug power source is likely to be larger and bulkier than a power supply that operates at a single set of charachteristics. Given that the devices that require these power supplies are usually mobile that means it just got heavier to lug your mobile phone charger on vacation. Now you might hope that in total you would save on power supplies because you could share one power source between multiple devices. But if you only bring one power supply on your trip that means you can't leave your laptop charging in your hotel room/friend's house while taking your cell phone charger with for the day.
In short flexibility will require we still own a power supply for each device not to mention the point made in the article that each vendor is still going to want to ship a power source with their item. It seems to me a better idea is to standardize on a few power profiles and connectors instead so we can simply use more power supplies interchangeably without making them support multiple voltages.
In particular it seems best if we standardized on one connector (like the great apple magnetic one) for laptop type devices and the settled on powering the small devices through the USB standard like the iphone and other cell phones. Not only does your power cable now double as a data cable but we've saved on all the excess effort that would have gone into making smart power sources offering multiple voltages.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Yet Another Wall Wart Made In China Out Of Plastic.
All of my laptops I have ever owned have died because the DC power socket lost its connection with the motherboard. I am convinced that laptop manufacturers half-ass this component on purpose.
Any "universal" solution to power adapters ought to also address this problem.
Another reason to standardize on a single voltage is that we could actually eliminate a lot more converters that way and make things much more convenient.
Let's say we (the whole world this time) standardized on a single 16V plug and a standard 3V plug. At first you would still need a converter on the end of the standard cords but eventually we could just create wall sockets for the now standard plugs. Then we could use a single high quality transformer for each building/floor and add wall plugs for these new standards.
Eventually you might be able to skip packing your power converters entirely and count on the hotel having the correct power standard. Even better you wouldn't need to worry about different electric plugs so much in foreign countries.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Wouldn't the standard need only specify certain amperage minimums the supply would have to produce?
I mean once you've fixed the voltage the devices themselves could throw in a resistor of their choice to get the amperage they want unless the device simply can't meet the demand. Isn't this how house electricity works? There is a high amperage limit at the fuse box for the whole room but no specification for the amps at an individual outlet.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I agree with what you are saying about having devices take the same inputs.
That said, part of the reason it even makes sense to take you laptop to your friend's house is that you can plug the power adapter into the wall. If there was an adapter standard, you could just plug your laptop into your friend's adapter and take either his or your smaller, portable adapter for your cell phone.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The only thing actually made by "Westinghouse" is nuclear reactors. The brand name is licensed out by CBS to Westinghouse Digital Electronics LLC, which is a front for Chi Mei Optoelectronics, a subsidiary of Chi Mei Corporation (Taiwan).
Chi Mei is probably the world's leading supplier of large LCD panels.
No Chinese firm owns Westinghouse. The history of Westinghouse is a little convoluted, but it is basically now CBS. Westinghouse was originally called Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In the 90s they bought CBS and then later renamed themselves to CBS Corporation (which then sold itself to Viacom which then renamed to CBS Corporation). Currently, the Westinghouse brand is managed by a CBS subsidiary again called Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Various companies license the rights to use the brand. CBS is, of course, a publicly traded company headquartered in the United States (New York in particular).
So no, the parent is not "interesting".
There is a problem with this. I assume that you mean 16 and 3 Volts DC. As voltage goes down current goes up. With higher current you need thicker wire. 500mA is not to bad, but if an entire house is wired up one would need 10 to 20 amps. From my work in the pipe organ industry I can tell you that anything less then 10 gauge wire will cause problems.
This is precisely why 120V AC is run in homes. It is the right balance between the amount of power that can be delivered, and the safety of exposed line voltage. If the voltage were much less the current would be too much to handle. much over 300 volts and the act of connecting to the circuit becomes too risky for "the average person."
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
if it saves power, and it's cutting back on e-waste and thus carbon emissions, then do it. There is no excuse to allow the sales mongering companies of the world to continue producing adaptors which are always essential to replace and essentially disposable due to the amount of time it takes for these un-recyclable, power wasting products to go from sale, to land-fill.
if we make them standard, hotels and other places will already have one available! Sure, we might need wall-warts available for just one plug, but it would be the exception.. and everybody would have one!
It's not about the "plugs" it's about the wasted power of plugged in things that aren't being used. The trouble with Wall-warts is they are stupid and drizzle power the entire time they are plugged in, even without a device attached. What do we do? we buy and extra to take on the road, so we don't have to crawl under our desks and unplug them... so we have 5 wall-warts running with no devices all day!! That's what this product is trying to eliminate because it will shut as much power circuitry as possible when the device is not used.
First: yes, you will have just as many power supplies as items to be powered and/or recharged. Nothing new there. (Oh, that's not counting their power supply hub. But we'll ignore that for the moment.) Yes, these supplies will cost more initially than the present ones. But like any investment, it's supposed to save you money in the long run.
On the other hand, when your cell phone dies, or your electric razor, or your battery charger, you can buy a new one without buying a new power supply -- because the power supply is universal, see? Less waste in the landfill, less use of resources (one less supply to build), less money to buy the new item.
And if you dash off on a trip and forget your cell phone charger, but remember your electric razor charger -- hey, no problem! They'll just have to take turns. Or you can charge them both at night because you're not using your laptop.
In fact, any decent hotel will have a charger installed right in the wall. Just in case.
Or you're staying at a friend's house; you can borrow his.
As for the supply being bulky, they've already got a supply that can adjust to any voltage in its range.
Since the supply actually talks to the device, it will know when the device is charged, and turn itself off. Unlike the current average wall wart, it will stop using power (or only use a miniscule trickle) if the device doesn't need power.
So: Initial expense will be higher, but you'll be able to save on later purchases (because you can re-use the old supply), you'll save on power (because of lower vampiric power draw), and all the power supplies will be interchangeable.
Greenplug's web site
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Westinghouse is the first major electronics manufacturer
So what does Westinghouse even make that might use this? And I'm certainly not talking about other companies who just license the Westinghouse and their logo and sell stuff under the Westinghouse name. This would be pretty overpriced for even a Laptop power supply / charger, and as far as I know Westinghouse isn't in the laptop business. The article mentions LCD TVs, computer monitors and digital photo frames. I have never seen decent TV with a wall wart, and never hope to see one. It would be absolutely prohibitive for most wall wart base things, like photo frames, phones (in-home as well as cell chargers), answering machines, DTV converter boxes, amplifying antennas, home routers, and small toys. Monitors doesn't sound very realistic, and I have yet to see a Westinghouse branded one. The problem isn't just that companies like Apple want proprietary supplies and connectors to protect their profit margin, but it's also that this supposed "standard" doesn't have a good "killer-app" to rally behind. At this point USB looks like a far better choice of standards than this (for lower powered devices), and far more affordable. Sure it doesn't so everything this system could, but this system will never meet that promise either as long as it claims to be an (expensive) solution for everyone but is really for no one.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
A great deal of your AC home wiring is already 12-14 gauge, which is plenty for the 15-20A circuits that are standard in residential buildings. Even going with a thicker wire for DC, say 10 Gauge the problem isn't current being too much to handle, it's power loss.
10 AWG cable has a resistance of about 1.2 mOhms/ft, now say you have a 100' length of it running through your house. If you put 10 Amps through it, you're losing 12 Watts of power and dropping 1.2Volts. For 120V AC, thats 1% loss in power and voltage. For 3V DC, thats a 40% loss in power and you now have 1.8V DC. Not so useful.
"Until the become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious"
Are you speaking of the magnetic connector that randomly catches on fire? It attracts steel dust, and passes 3.65 amps through a thin wire which occasionally frays and, due to being as thin as possible, is immediately overloaded when even the slightest damage occurs.
Yes, let's standardize on that.
I took my macbook apart and replaced that motherfucker with a standard coax connector. Not only will it now not catch on fire, but I can use ordinary cheap car chargers instead of the $80 cable Apple sells which lacks the necessary electronics to tell the macbook it's allowed to charge. (Apple feeds us some bullshit about it not being an adequate power source, but that's bullshit. They say that airplanes cannot supply more than 5A through their "15mm power port" a.k.a. cigarette lighter, but the fucking wall adapter is only rated for 3.65 amps, so where's the problem? It's apple being a bitch is all.)
I went through the Green Plug website. Could this technology help a particular company with their family of products?
No information on power levels -- I could really use some information in I and V ranges. I could use some basic information about protocols. Is it designed for intermittent use, like charging, or can I design my widget to use one of these for full time operation?
I'd rate the website +5 for marketing speak and -200 for lack of technical detail that could give interested technical folks some basic information to decide whether to take this to the next level.
tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
I'd happily pay an extra $5 or $10 for a device if it had an iPod charge connector.
I travel a bit and it is a royal pain in the ass to have to have to carry multiple chargers. I'm up to 5 now - laptop, phone, ipod, ipaq, and camera chargers (yes, I could scale back what I take, but I don't want to; I use all those devices a lot on the move).
It is probably one of the most common electronic devices so I'm really surprised there's not more out there. I know Apple wants a cut, but I can't imagine its more than a couple of dollars per device and I'd HAPPILY pay the extra for it. In addition to the above 5 devices I have a billion more at home that I don't want either.
While I'd obviously much rather see some generic standard take hold, I can't see that happening because these add-on peripheral things are clearly such an awesome cashcow for consumer electronics makers. In the meantime, I'm happy to let Apple rule the roost.
Thomas Edison is that you? Mr. Westinghouse won the DC vs AC debate a long time ago. Give it up.
A lot of these devices just charge batteries at nV/DC...what are the losses typically associated with the AC-->DC conversion? Those adapters seem to get fairly warm sometimes.
Of course, you'd really need to have a big trickle-charging battery between your roof array or fuel cell and the DC devices to help you get a constant voltage....
I recently got modded down for saying macs uncompatability is a company policy. And that it holds back the market from reaching good standards. Yet the summary here includes it as a given :p funny.
Simple: One bulky one for at home or work, and a smaller travel model. I'm sure they've thought of these things as I thought of them as soon as I read your complaint.
Power standardisation seems a bit unrealistic. Big things are easier to standardise (and most are, like a dektop computer for example), but smaller devices such as mobile phones and laptops have a much greater variation because of the space and weight considerations and power requirements of different models.
And who's to say you still can't keep one or two small wall-warts around for specific devices when you travel?
If this is patented, then it's doomed to fail. And a little startup together with Westinghouse doesn't sound like a good beginning. To get this off the ground, they need several laptop and cell phone manufacturers.
I insist it support home networking.
"While I'd obviously"
really? It's not that obvious from the text above that line.
"much rather see some generic standard take hold, I can't see that happening because these add-on peripheral things are clearly such an awesome cashcow for consumer electronics makers. In the meantime, I'm happy to let Apple rule the roost."
And it's definitely non-obvious here. If anything, I'd say it's obvious you love Apple (nothing wrong with that; certainly not calling you a fanboy or anything juvenile of the sort. I love Apple, in general, too.) and as a result of this love for Apple, will happily take it up the tailpipe from Apple when it comes to their connector (and as much as I love Apple - I do not love their connector.)
You are happy to let Apple rule the roost.. what roost is that? The 'mp3 player' roost? The 'smartphone' roost?
They may be the most popular in the former, and gaining a shitload of traction in the latter, but they're hardly ruling it.
Moreover, they're -way- off on ruling the power connector roost. Yes, they made a decent connector for power+data, congratulations Apple, even if ignoring that USB could already do this. Yes, they made a much -better- connector for power (+data) with the magnetic variant. That one I would *happily* include as a "must have" for universal power supplies if that type of connector becomes much more prevalent (patents and licensing on that from Apple are holding that back - good job Jobs, it keeps that 'exclusivity' aspect going.)
But while it isn't, and Apple is charging for licenses*, most manufacturers are not going to sell a universal power supply with an added Apple-licensed connector costing them $NNNNNNNNN when only a fraction of the users actually use the thing. They can throw in 8 different types of 5mm round plugs (this in itself annoys the hell out of me; they occupy the same space, only the inner diameter differs. wtf. but at least they don't have to pay any license money for it so I guess they stamp them out by the millions for cheap) and cover the vast majority of users and tell those who do have an iPod / iPhone / whatever to purchase a separate product.
* As of 2006/May/11 - couldn't spot a newer reference.
"Previously Apple charged 1.5% of the wholesale price per unit for use of their proprietary iPod dock connector, but as of yesterday (May 10th) the dock connector license is a flat fee of $4 USD."
$4 USD! On a simple universal charger of $29.99, that's 13%. And that is why most aren't going to include one in the base pack.
That said - companies might do well to offer one as an extra. For sale off of their website. $4+S&H+marginal profit. Question is whether Apple Legal is going to see that connector as a device on its own (thus the $4), or whether they say "oh no no no my dear man, that connector is to go with your power supply. So we will be charging you $4 per power supply."
But then, who's going to pay $4 + S&H + a marginal profit for a little plug nub (shiny, white and "Made for iPod / compatible with iPhone"-logofied as it may be) when you can get a full-on charger elsewhere for $10, and can then charge your iPod / iPhone in parallel with whatever non-Apple device you've got hanging off of your universal power supply?
Wall-warts draw very little current when not powering a device. Most devices are designed with a standby mode that draws little or no power from the wall-wart when charged and not in use. This universal power supply must draw a similar amount of current when not powering a device, in order to power it's circuitry that detects devices being attached. To realize any power savings (or for that matter, any benefit to using this scheme), multiple wall-warts must be replaced by one universal power supply, and even then the power savings don't amount to much. The only significant impact I can see would be related to disposal issues. Fewer (but bulkier) power supplies manufactured, which don't become obsolete when the device they power dies, could result in a significant net decline in waste that ends up in landfills.
It will take wide-scale adoption by device manufacturers, and some amount of time for these power suplies to be ubiquitous enough for the demand for new ones to go down, kicking in the positive effects of the plan. It could happen, though. USB enjoys wide-scale adoption, and this scheme is kind of like an extended USB power bus.
I think the best way to deal with the issues addressed by this design, is to continue to move toward using USB (ubiquitous now, and the move is already under-way) to power and charge the vast majority of devices for which USB power is sufficient, and move to the universal supply for the bigger stuff like laptops and power tool batteries. Nobody's going to buy a $49 mp3 player that requires a $99 charger they don't already have. It won't be practical to design the smaller stuff to use these supplies until they are already in wide-spread use.
SomeFYI: NFM (NoFyckingMagic)
... phone/ipod) or their chargers have transformers and/or rectifiers the adjust AC-voltage levels and/or convert AC to DC electricity.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/wild-charge-hands+on-really-does-charge-wirelessly-227215.php
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/07/08/wildcharger-charges-wirelessly/
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/university-of-florida/3792-wireless-charging-station-video.htm
All electronic products I know of use DC operationally, AC is just for power distribution over distances and throughout the house/biz.
So, yes, presently all electronics (radio/tv
Anyway, home/biz with WCS could buy products in the future that weigh less, are smaller, cheaper, and use have far less wires/plugs in a mess.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I have always wondered why AC to DC conversion is not just built in to the domestic
wiring. It would be a trivial matter to include step-down circuits at the home breaker box.
A single 12 volt DC distribution or maybe both 12 volt and 6 volt options should accommodate
most electronic equipment. In the case where some other uncommon voltage level, like
3 V or 9 V, is required, DC-DC conversion could be included in the equipment itself.
Considering just how much redundancy this idea would eliminate -- since currently each
electronic device must carry its own set of transformers and regulators for AC conversion
-- the electronics industry should be very interested in developing standards for domestic
DC power.
It may or may not be interesting, but it is not a troll, and it does turn out that the brand name IS used by another company, Siemens. It isn't CBS.
Mod parent down, and grandparent up.
My laptop charger already shows a big, fat zero-watt draw on my watt meter after the laptop is finished charging. Why would I need to spend "under $100" for the same thing?
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
There are high voltage DC power lines all over the place. "Power electronics" solved a lot of the voltage problems that existed in Edison's day (or rather, mitigated the high voltage advantage that simple AC transformers gave AC power by making it efficient to switch DC power up to high voltages).
A big plus of a DC power line is that you don't need to keep the grids on either end of it in phase with each other, so you reduce the chances of huge cascade failures when there is a problem in one area.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Some alarm clocks get their timebase from the frequency of the AC line. I've seen one that had a little 50/60 Hz switch, and if it wasn't correctly set the clock would drift very fast.
Wow, you win, there are AC motors with gears for clocks, washing-machines ....
....
Most folks today when they read/hear the word electronics normally think that some DC/electronics (not electrical) components are involved. I agree, AC motors are electrical and in the USA+ use ~56...63Hz, EU+ use ~47...53Hz, but
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Wall warts are big and heavy because they contain a big, heavy transformer. Transformers change AC voltages around - higher or lower. The bigger the change in voltage, the bigger the transformer needs to be, for the same frequency. Changing 120 volts to 5 volts is a large change - a 96% reduction in voltage to be exact. So if the starting voltage was lower, the wall would be smaller and lighter. Great! go low voltage... except that low voltages have big line losses because the currents are big.
The solution? Higher frequencies! 50/60 herts is SUPER low frequency. It's so low frequency it is hard to do anything with. In fact the first step of the new, light switching power supplies is to chop the 60hz signal into a 30khz+ signal that can be run through a tiny efficient transformer.
We should distribute 48 volt @ 20khz through a shielded cable in the home. 48 volts is high enough for low line losses (120 volts works too though) and the higher frequency makes the voltage converters light and efficient.
Does it really do what you say it does? I am under the impression it promises some power savings but only really delivers a minimal improvement over the current way of doing things. Seems like they plan to release updates and upgrades over time, so they can get the most money out of the consumer. Now that appears to me to be the real purpose of this tech, which is different from the stated purpose.