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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,
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
That is the fault of windows.
Windows will not allow high current to the usb port unless the device is seen, driver loaded, and running. Many cellphones refuse to charge USB until you install the windows driver.
It's Microsoft's fault. get a powered usb hub and bypass stupid microsoft tricks.
P.S.: it's not the computer. Under linux I can charge a device with a usb port even if no drivers are loaded. only windows does this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
USB has a handshaking protocol for establishing what sort of load is attached and whether the host (hub, PC, whatever) will support the requested load's power. Many wall wart USB chargers are dumb 5V supplies. While this will satisfy some load devices, others will remain in 'low power' mode, awaiting the supply to acknowledge a request for more power. Which will never come. This may result in trickle charging or no charge mode at all.
Experts on the topic may jump in and correct me, but this is my understanding: Some O/Ss handle the USB handshaking in device-specific drivers (Windows), while others implement this function in the lowest level of their USB stack (Linux). Smart USB hubs and chargers have a microcontroller and firmware to support this protocol.
Have gnu, will travel.
USB 2.0 added the ability to draw up to 1.5amps for charging capabilities (the minimum is 100 milliamp). usb 3.0 could up the amperage even more, but again, usb will only ever put out 5 volt DC.
fortunately there are a lot of devices that can run off 5 volt DC, so usb charging instead of wall brick is starting to take off. it's much cheaper to power off usb than to include a 'cheap' wall brick. only window's implementation of usb is 'broken' so that a device needs a device driver and must be in 'active' mode to charge.
besides, if you design the device to charge off usb, you can then 'sell' a brick that costs extra and not include one for the 'price' of the device. both saving money, and adding a revenue stream.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
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".
because they don't have a default answer in a generic USB driver. It's one of the little digs they take so that each manufacture has to write a WHQL driver so their device will "properly" talk. This is instead of simply providing the industry standard, or most common, answer to the request when made.
They pulled the same crap with the power management specs on laptops, so OEMS could "optimize" their performance, instead of simply implementing the default optimizations from the chip manufacture directly. The reason is that it keeps devices tied to Windows drivers and keeps OEMS in the Microsoft upgrade treadmill.
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.
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.