Edit: see comments for clarifications.
I am probably late on this one, but god damn this is one nasty trick by Philips.
Context; I recently decided to upgrade my shaver, from a Philips One Blade to Philips an all-in-one-trimmer-7000. As you can see on the pictures below, they changed the charger for the adapter by maybe 1–2 millimetres, just so the old charger could not be used by the old charger. Now, this normally isn’t a big deal, but with the new trimmer, the charger is USB-A only. Where’s the previous one had the plug on it instead. To me this is mildly infuriating as I know need to get an extra adapter just to charge my shaver in the bathroom. They had the exact same design for the chargers, yet changed it just slightly so they wouldn’t be able to be reused? Why… Philips… why?
Edit: many good points in the comments! I don’t know how to manually check the voltage, but seems like folks figured it out in the comments too. Should have just been USB-C!
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the new trimmer, the charger is USB-A only. Where’s the previous one had the plug on it instead.
Maybe I’m confused.
Your new trimmer takes in USB (Low Voltage DC) power.
Your old trimmer took in Plug (High Voltage AC) power.
If that’s the case, yeah of course the plugs would be different? You’d fry the new one with the old plug.
The OneBlade has a transformer in the wall plug part, the actual cable going to the handheld unit is only carrying low voltage.
What low voltage though? Unless it’s 5V like USB (non-PD and non-QC), they should and need to be incompatible.
looks like the old one was 15v, while the new one is 5v.
Now, if it has used USB-C it could still be 15v…
came to say that. Looks like the old one was 15v, while if the new one is USB-A it was 5v.
Now, if it was USB-C, it could still have been USB-C!
Are you sure they charge with the same specifications? This might just be to avoid potential fire hazards & damage.
Nice of then to make sure you cant accidentally blow up your new razor because you assumed the old cable would work if it fit.
So stupid idea. What if some 220V cable from a third-party manufacturer does fit?
Plugging in a random cable from some random manufacturer is not a thing that most people would consider doing. (Furthermore, I doubt that any 220V cable would fit, these connectors on the picture are smaller than they look).
I have about ten of these cables, and they are interchangeable.
Yeah because they are standardized. However, these are too big to fit in that razor and the only reason these cables are interchangable is because they follow that standard.
IEC C7
The old cable supplies 15V, which would fry your shaver that is expecting 5V
I think the real sin here is making the shaver dependent on stored charge instead of just letting it run immediately after being plugged in.
I have both of these and one charger is 8v and the other is 15v.
Isn’t it to make sure that you’re not mixing two incompatible chargers? I have 2 Philips chargers that do fit (as far as I can see), but are not the same voltage. I’ve previously also had something like this where 2 fitting chargers were completely different electrically, one 12V AC and the other 9V DC. One time a family member mixed them up, bit luckily the extra voltage didn’t fry anything. I don’t mind having to get an extra charger of it prevents me from doing something dumb and frying my electronics.
Having experience with electromechanics - I have seen times where this was done on purpose to make sure that people aren’t trying to reuse an incompatible plug for charging purposes. NiCd doesn’t charge the same as LiFePo, Li-ion, etc. Charging voltages, polarities, stability of power output, etc.
To be fair though, they just need to make everything USB-C anyhow. Especially shavers.
My next shaver will be USB-C. It’s now a standard for charging whatever you want.
To be fair though, they just need to make everything USB-C anyhow.
Careful what you wish for. Putting advanced electronics into very simple devices will just make them fail a lot faster.
Some old device just needed 12V over a barrel jack to run some motor or light and charge the battery and it lasted a decade - only failed because the battery got old. New one now needs a state of the art power delivery chip to negotiate the right voltage and current, and all over a very fine pitch connector that will fail if you look at it wrong. Not looking good on the durability front at all.Are you Apple engieneer? Because I have no idea why PD chip is state of art for you
I don’t work for Apple, but I am an electronics engineer. Just don’t be surprised when your simpler devices start failing.
Since when is a BMS advanced technology?
The only issue I have with USB power solutions is that it’s also capable of data transfer, which is bad. Imagine a dystopian future of being tracked by companies and governments by the places you plugged your shaver in at, of all the stupid things that could happen.
If the only thing keeping a battery from exploding or corroding is a 4cm^3 box with a prong on one side and hole on the other then the people making the devices just need to incorporate power regulators into their designs.
Making communication over barrel jack is not hard either.
I’m discussing how it connects to the wall. You would be the second person to somehow misconstrue that. Wall outlets should not become USB.
I don’t understand you. Barrel jack is not usb.
I was never at any point talking about barreljack or any other intermediary power supply adapters for the devices. You are the one talking about that. Go talk to somebody else about it. I am talking about the potential of USB becoming so commonplace as a means of power supply that wall outlets start using it as a standard, which would be bad.
I was never at any point talking about barreljack or any other intermediary power supply adapters for the devices.
Correct, you was talking about how it is scary for you that USB can be used not only to charge device, but also to transfer data. To which I replied even barrel jack can be used for transfering data.
Even more: you can use USB PD 2.0(but not 3.1, at least not out of box) over barrel jack.
I’ve never seen a barreljack wall port so I fail to see any relevance. If it exists then I guess I’m against that, too.
It’s capable of data transfer…but to a power brick in the wall? Are there people who plug their shavers into their PC?
I mean… If it has a USB socket and I can plug it into my PC… Surely it was intended for that. After all the USB ports on a PC are just as capable of delivering power.
Sure may be an unusual solution to charge a shaver but you could do that.
Exactly. It’s going to be the most uncommon thing though. Convenient in an emergency if somehow you have a spare PC for charging and not a USB-C power brick…somehow…
But there’s not enough people doing it to justify what this guy is suggesting.
It’s also completely unnecessary since there are better devices for tracking and shenanigans available. Why bother with a shaver that has neither a camera or a microphone or is tracking location for anything when you can use a device that has all of that. Like pretty much every modern phone on the market, more so smartphones.
Regarding that other thing… In practice it could be that you are staying in a hotel room for any reason really but you forgot your power brick, still need to shave, but have a PC for one reason or another and a spare cable to use. However unlikely that is, but it’s not unheard of to forget the phone charger when going on a trip.
Are you going to remove outlets and strip walls every hotel you ever visit to check for data? Because that somehow sounds both sane and also unhinged, good luck with that.
USB is capable of data transfer but only if there’s compatible hardware in the device. The shave it doesn’t have any capacity to transmit data so what’s it going to do there’s nothing to track all they get is “someone has plugged something that requires some power into this port, but I don’t know what cuz it doesn’t have any brains”
It is important to be wary of ways that you could leak data but at the same time it’s also important not to go all paranoid tinfoil hat
It could have something like a unique identifier with some extremely simple and cheap components, and if the wall outlets of the future become USB then the business could have the ability to log it and sell that usage data to advertisers, as well as identify guests beyond just the information given during check-in.
Which sounds really stupid until you remember Google was found out to be counting people’s steps taken.
But they’d actually have to put hardware into a razor to enable that and to what end? It’s not useful info to know when you are shaving, and you already carrying a phone around in your pocket surely that’s the biggest point of data leakage. Fix that first before you start worrying about all these conspiracy theories.
This dude doesn’t believe in the “conspiracy” that companies invest in devices purely to track them and their habits. They just woke up from a coma since the 90s.
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are the voltages actually the same?
I don’t see how it could be. One plugs into line voltage and the other 5v usb. The reason they changed the plug size is probably to keep OP from frying his new razor.
I don’t know how to check that, also can’t find the specs on the old one.
FYI, to figure this out you would look at the part that plugs into the wall. there’s a bunch of writing on it. at one point it will say something like " input: 120-240 VAC, output: 15 VDC 0.5 A". that’s true for pretty much all transformer bricks. like if you want to see how much a USB brick will supply it will say on there “5V 2A” or whatever.
I only checked the (new) one that is USB-a only and that didn’t have any writing on it.
USB is typically 5v.
The battery died on my old shaver. Because I can’t leave well enough alone, I decided to see if I could replace it. Spent so much time tracking down the battery model number and looking for a replacement only to find out it’s a standard triple a. It’s identity was obfuscated by the stupid labeling. Soldered it in and bam, razor still works for several years.
ive got philips body groomer which in time become somehow a curiosity: once its fully charged it runs until battery gets dry as it should but if i by any chance press the button i need to the whole cycle charge
The charging requirements have likely changed so the plug was redesigned sup you don’t fry your new shaver using the old plug/adapter.
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They all do this. Every time.
I’ll await the EU enforcing USB-C here too.
Having USB-C PD on a Shaver would be nice, but also costly as it would require the Shaver to ‘ask’ the power supply for power. And they probably gonna save a penny there.
EU enforces standard chargers, not type c specifically. It can be micro, mini or even type b
Seems to be USB-C explicitly. But might change in the future. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20220413STO27211/usb-type-c-to-become-eu-s-common-charger-by-end-of-2024
It’s news article, not law itself.
The directive also speaks of usbc in 11 and 12 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32022L2380
Hm, indeed. Maybe I was reading some old version or there was similar law that didn’t require Type C specifically.
If they are the same voltage just take a razor and shave some of the material away, I had to do this to get a c7 connector to fit into my xbox one, the rubber was just molded too far to fit
Shave
All that shaving just to shave.
There’s a notch on my charger dear lemmings dear lemmings. There’s a notch on the charger dear lemmings, a notch.
Coincidentally, I just got a knock-off Soda Stream from Phillips. It’s over $150 cheaper and works 2x-3x times better. I wanted to build something similar for a homemade soda bar concept, and discovered how truly cheap it can be to make soda and carbonated water at home. I was shocked at what a simple concept it is, and how much of a profit these sodas water companies make. Phillips even charging $50 for their system is a total rip-off.
Truthfully, I think the increase in quality in the Phillips machine is due to fewer parts is an “exception that proves the rule” as these in-bottle carbonators seem to work better with fewer parts. It’s just a pressure hose connected to a co2 tank. Literally, all of $6 if you were to build one yourself from parts on Amazon (or $3 if you got he Alibaba route)
I truly believe that the fewer parts the better in any DIY or commercial product due to the less chance of a failure in a part if there are fewer parts. This works fantastically for the “lower quality” producing companies, like Phillips.
My inventive and engineering entrepreneur friends and I call this “fewer parts the better” concept, a “Murphy’s law compensator” as the fewer parts there are, the fewer parts that can statistically “go wrong”
So infuriating that they would send you a charger that works with the device 😤😤 how fucking dare they
