The British one. It has a switch and a fuse, and later versions have age-verification so your kids can no longer plug in your adult toys.
Had me in the first half. Well played.
And your adult toys must be licensed, of course. To protect the kids.
Its important you don’t allow them access so you need to keep them on your person in a place thats very hard to access. So hard.
Your last sentence is a double entendre?
double in your entendre.
My toys are wireless…
You’ll need a broadcasting licence for that, mate.
Only if they’re charged.
P.S.: since battery cells need to be disposed properly, they are now an 18+ purchase.
Age verification on batteries?
These are the best anyway
Nah, they’re too power limited. What you really want will require a 3 phase hookup to the bedroom.
Just be careful, three phase hookups = potential hurt feelings and messy drama.
Hey now, let’s not give BSI and NESO any ideas mate.
I’m actually kinda surprised that more don’t have switches, but I suppose if you have radial rather than ring circuits you don’t have to play ‘hunt the appliance that tripped all your switches’ quite so hard
Real
In my opinion it’s Type-F
Because:
- It’s bi-directional
- It’s grounded and ungrounded plugs use the same socket
- It’s already widespread (50+ countries) source
- Your fingers can’t touch the live wire as you’re plugging in a wire
- It’s recessed
- Low footprint
- Accepts Type-C
Accepts Type-C
It took me a few seconds to realize you werent talking about shoving a USB Type C plug into there.
What’s the difference of C and F type?
C is mostly for low power devices
F is basically a heavy duty upgrade of C, it’s got grounding on the side and can handle 16A (ovens, heaters etc.)
Don’t you get numpties plugging F appliances into C sockets then complaining to customer service that the induction stovetop doesn’t boil water for tea fast enough?
You cant the plug is thicker
Can you plug C into F?
Yeah. You cant plug f into c because f is thicker by a bit but c goes into f.
The type-C shown in the picture is also not the only form it has and maybe partly misleading, the plug usually is significantly smaller and flat, and power strips can feature multiple of those in less space.
I see a lot of your comments about F being objectively same or better compared to G. The only thing I’d throw into the mix is the socket switch feels so logical, I’m really surprised it’s not more standard.
High frequency use case: I don’t need my microwave on all the time showing me the time, so I switch it off at the socket unless I’m using it
Low frequency use case: before going on holiday I switch all the electrics off at the sockets
I never understood why every appliance in the kitchen needs to display the time. lol
Socket switch isn’t really a feature of the socket itself. I’ve had schuko sockets with switches. It’s just not as common
Why not switch off the fuse in the holiday case? More time efficient.
Furthermore, appliances compatible with Type F are almost always compatible with Type E as well, it’s just a matter of including both grounding mechanisms which they all do to avoid designing multiple cords.
I haven’t yet visited the UK so the only time I’ve had trouble plugging in something in Europe is in shudders Italy.
Because:
- It’s bi-directional
This is very convenient, and not a problem in 99.9% of cases, but there are some devices where it’s important to not have the hot and neutral wire swapped
What sort of devices
Solar Microinverters
why should those plug into a normal outlet regularly? wouldn’t that be a measure polarity and just leave it alone device?
Bi-directional is a double-edged feature.
It means that there is no reliable way of identifying line and neutral wire, which requires more complex double switches downstream.
Also, F is unnecessarily clunky and big and hard to make a weather-proof version of because of the complex shape.
And type-E. Most EU plugs are F-E compatible, because countries go about alternating them. Spain F, France E, Germany F, Poland E. You build a plug with a hole for the E ground bolt and a cutout for the F side contacts.
As the least biased swiss person. Type J (or type N, Idk) is so much better. We put three plugs on the same surface as you have 1. I am always frustrated to see how impractical your plugs are when I go to the EU
Jawoll!
It’s bi-directional
That’s bad.
Every device produced in the past few decades doesn’t care which wire is live.
Damn homophobes…
Clear, informative and solution oriented. I wish all signs were this good.
Why? It doesn’t make any difference with AC
The actual electrical device can be designed such that it depends on exactly which direction is live and which is neutral.
Imagine a circuit loop that, as you follow along the circuit, has an AC power source, then a switch, and then the electrical appliance, leading back to the AC source it started from.
If you design the circuit so that you know for sure that the live wire goes to the switch first before the actual load, then your design ensures that if there is a fault or a short somewhere in the appliance, it won’t let the live power leak anywhere (because the whole device is only connected to the neutral line, not the hot live voltage that alternates between positive and negative voltage). It’s safer, and is less likely to damage the internals of a device. Especially if someone is going to reach inside and forgets to unplug it or cut power at the circuit breaker.
In practice tons of outlets are wired the wrong way around.
F actually has a convention for the socket, which is probably ignored even more often, but I would never trust live and neutral not to have been swapped somewhere regardless of outlet.Just forcing plug designers to consider live/neutral being randomized in a very obvious manner might be safer in the long run than working on a partially broken system where someone manufacturer might be fooled into trusting it.
Could you give an example of such a device? Seems like a bad design
A simple lamp can demonstrate.
You have both live and neutral lines in the cable, coming up to a switch, which can either open the circuit on the live line or the neutral line. Then, the lamp itself has a single light bulb as the load.
If you place the switch on the live line, then the energy of the live line stops at the switch, with only whatever lower voltage is in the neutral line to actually be connected to the light bulb and lamp assembly.
But if you place the switch on the neutral line, you’re leaving the entire lamp on the voltage of the live line, which gives the voltage more places to potentially short circuit. If you were to take a non-contact voltage detector, you’d be able to detect a live voltage in the line leading up to the bulb, even when it’s not turned on.
You generally do this with the in-wall wiring and switches, too, and make the wall switches break open the circuit on the live line, not the neutral line. It’s just a better practice overall.
And no, the neutral line is not totally grounded, so it can still pose a danger, too. But safety is exercised in layers, and putting the switch on the live line is the better practice.
That’s a lamp in theory, but do you know of any actual lamps being sold where this matters?
in the US it’s fairly common, so probably some American manufacturers would do it that way
This is an entirely theoretical problem that just doesn’t exist in practice. Just to be clear, for it to short circuit, it’s needs to find a path to ground. It can’t just “go somewhere”. Just because the line is longer didn’t make it more dangerous for it to “just exist”. There are regulations for wires, which include frankly absurd safety margins, regulations for the electrical devices that are not optional either (CE compliance for example). It just complicates this for basically no reason to have keyd outlets.
If there’s electricity reaching the bulb it would be lit no? So if I place the contact upside down, I wouldn’t be able to turn off my light?
It’s not electricity, exactly, but it is a higher voltage that is different from the average of everything around it. Electricity needs a closed loop to flow, and breaking open the loop with a switch means that no electricity flows, but the voltage of the live line goes up and down, creating an electric potential with anything that might be at a different voltage, if a conductor touches both.
Some people say it does with certain devices but I’ve never had anything I’ve run into. The American outlets have been used as bi-directional in most instances. (With 2 prong). If they had a ground then you can only go in one way. But that said… Obviously a cord without a ground can still plug into an outlet that has the ground set up. If the device wants the current to go in a certain direction they use one with a slightly larger prong on one side, but if you pick up any phone charger in America, you can plug it into any outlet any direction.
Phone chargers are definitely not the appliance that’s going to have an issue switching things out. That’s going to be stuff that directly uses the AC power. Some older appliances or shittily designed ones can even become an electrocution hazard when switching live with neutral.
If the device wants the current to go in a certain direction
That’s not how AC works
they use one with a slightly larger prong on one side,
That’s not Ground, it’s Neutral. Neutral is sometimes bonded to Ground, but they are fundamentally different things
- Yeah it’s just a potential difference, not a one directional flow really
- No one said it’s ground? The ground is on the third prong
It doesn’t matter depending on whether both are live. In plenty of places, only one side is live. Switching live with neutral can be very bad depending on the appliance, as described already elsewhere.
In the particular case the sign is trying to prevent it’s to keep lazy idiots from electrocuting themselves stringing up Christmas lights.
Why?
Why?
No it’s bi-winning
Type K. I mean how can you say no to that face?
why would you shove things into it’s mouth?
I think shoving things into its eyes is more concerning
This is universally true.
It’s the only one that looks happy to be there.
:D
Type I
Earth pin doesn’t cause the plug to murder your feet like the UK plug.
Angled pins to prevent cross polarisation.
Localised power switch per socket so you can turn something on or off with your toe and not bend down to unplug it.
Looks like a ghost face and when in the double gang formation the switches when on looks like the plate is high.
The main problem with type I (and a few others) is that it’s not recessed. If it comes loose a bit, you still have the problem of exposed live pins.
And the thin pins means that with any weight (wall-wart, etc.), it starts to come out.
Doubly so if it’s set into thin plasterboard that already wobbles.Pins are insulated since 2003.
New world solutions. I agree.
Some images of the plugs, since I didn’t know what they looked like.
It was mentioned the pins started being insulated like that second image 20 years ago, but going by the images I found the older uninsulated style is still more common. This is ofc a major shock hazard when plugging in your stuff.
Even with the insulation, you can still reach under the half inserted plug, just less easily and maybe only if you have smaller hands (like children).
Fundamentally flat sockets are doomed to be shock hazards, compare it to the recessed sockets where the entire surface the contacts insert into is cut off from reach before the pin insertion starts, and on top of that the pins of say type F have been insulated for so long many don’t know there were uninsulated variants.
Another bonus of the recessed style is the plug doesn’t stick as far out of your walls. For extension cords it’s probably a bit bulkier, but when you sink the recession into the wallbox of the outlet you can get as flush as the width of the cable with an angled plug.
Also pretty sure you can step on angled type I plugs resting on their backs. The recessed plugs usually have grips on top so can’t rest on their back even when angled. Their pins are also ball-shaped on the end, type I looks quite angular and more painful.
I live in Australia and I just did an audit of the power board that was sitting next to my bed. All four devices and the power board itself all have the insulated pins. I can’t remember the last time I saw one that didn’t have insulated pins. I’m sure they exist, but they are not common.
We also have RCD on all our circuits so if someone is able to short the pins, it will trip within 20ms or less.
Ironically, those are upside down.
Which usually indicates Chinese Type I - they don’t insulate pins but do put earth on top.
We insulate pins but live/neutral is on top.
Oof, I see.
Kinda a bad look for type I when some of the users follow a different spec and ruin all attempts at improving safety or even keeping standards like earth being down.In comparison the european plugs are moving closer together, for example F+E combo plugs are increasingly common.
Type F.
SCHUKO PLUG SUPREMACY FOREVER!
Oh, a list of things each identified by a different letter, better put them in a completely random order.
and then include a map that doesn’t match the flags!
Easy. Type G. For safety. If you’re worried about night-time attacks from ninja you can leave a few plugs by your bedroom door and windows with the pins upward. They will rue the day they entered that room in the dark!
It’s obviously the one in the country I live in. All the others that I have had zero experience with are from Satan.
I really think we should give japan more shit for this. Type A is terrible on it’s own merits, they don’t even polarize it. But then they have the gall to use two different frequencies with the divide in the middle of Honshu (the big island with the major cities). And unlike reasonable people they don’t do a “50 hz gets this plug, but 60 gets a non compatible one”. No, both use the plug that North America phased out over safety concerns.
But to answer the question, type B is nice and homey, but types I and N feel a fun mix of weird and foreign but close enough to be interesting. Most of the rest just feel like various “yeah it’s a circle with two circular prongs all right”
does type A just have no ground?
Yup. Japan also has grounded outlets, though, although they are comparatively rarer.
are house fires and electrocutions common occurrences?
Grounded devices are only important if it’s something that can build up charges or has a metal exterior that can become part of the circuit. Even then, it just takes something like a GFCI circuit to make something ungrounded near perfectly safe. House fires happen because of shitty house wiring or unattended or misused hot appliances, almost never because of ungrounded devices.That’s more just a general shock risk that can be mitigated in other ways.
Especially these days with so many things being lower voltage DC past an ac to dc converter that should have a ton of protections in itself.
Not as far as I’m aware.
I see the left side of just slightly bigger than the right, so I expect one of those sides to be the ground
You’d think so, but the ground will either be at the bottom of the outlet, requiring a separate cable, or Type-B.
Where? That is the most scuffed ground ive ever seen
Nope, just live and neutral.
Nope, the ground is a separate wire that just dangles there and never gets connected. Over the last 25 years I don’t think I’ve ever seen a utilised ground wire.
In North America, neutral is connected to ground. It’s the larger pin on a polarized plug. Some devices don’t use it; these usually don’t have a conductive outer surface.
In the USA, there’s a ground in that the neutral wire is connected to ground. Devices that take advantage of this have a slightly broader neutral pin that won’t fit into the hot pin.
It’s the oldest standard on the list, and is still around older homes in the USA. They used to be equally-sized (aka unpolarized), but later on they had a bigger hole for neutral (polarized). They’re not up to code anywhere anymore though, you’ll only see them in older houses before the grounding pin was required.
I would argue that neither of the plugs shown in the picture nor those mentioned by others are the best.
Ignoring current adoption, I think that IEC 60906-1 is the best plug. It is very similar to the Swiss plug and was intended to, at least in the EU, replace other plugs. It has quite a few advantages over the other plugs. It is rated at 16 A, has a compact form factor, is polarised, and has almost all the common protections except fuses (which are pretty much useless anyway). Currently it only is used in South Africa without major changes to the plug.
Compared to the Schuko (Type F):
- Much smaller. You can fit three plugs in the same space as a single Schuko plug (similar to Swiss triple outlets).
- It takes less force to plug in. Above 2.5A, Schuko plugs require a lot of force to plug in and pull out. To some extent, this is actually good for safety, but I would argue that, in the case of Schuko plugs at least, it’s too much
- It is also easier to plug in without seeing the plug since it isn’t round. Everyone who has tried to plug in a Schuko plug without seeing the holes knows how difficult it is
- It’s polarised/directional. In some very specific cases, there is a security advantage to using a polarised plug, but I think it’s also a hassle to only be able to plug in a plug one direction. It also fits Europlugs (the thin, small plugs with only two pins that are very common in Europe, e.g. on phone chargers)
Compared to (Typ G)):
- Wayyy smaller
- Not a stepping hazard
- Rated for 16A (instead of 13 A)
- No Fuse (Again, pretty unecessary)
Regarding three-phase power, I would argue that Swiss type 15 (10A) and type 25 (16A) plugs are the best. These are really cool because while beeing the same size as Schuko (Typ F) plugs, they can transfer three-phase power (so 11 kW; 230 V / 16A on all three phases). They also fit standard Swiss single-phase and Euro plugs. This makes plugging in large appliances like electric stoves much easier than in other countries.
I would find it quite cool if most countries switched to one common plug, and I think IEC 60906-1 would be best for that. It would also be possible to build hybrid sockets for many common plugs during the transition phase.
For safety, the BS1363 (UK, type G) is by far the best.
-
It’s fused. (Seriously why the hell aren’t all plugs fused!)
-
Live and neutral can’t be reversed.
-
Holes are gated (so no kids sticking spoons in).
-
High capacity, 240V at 13A gives 3kW of power.
It’s only real downside is its size.
Fusing plugs is completely unnecessary. The only reason this is done in the UK is because of old janky circuits only used in the UK.
So still necessary in the UK
Wrong, it’s fused because in the UK they have 32A 240V circuits, a fuse is important when dealing with that much current. In Australia we only have 16A 240V circuits as standard so there is no need for a fuse.
They have fuses because of their ring circuits from after WW2. You’re the one who’s wrong.
G is held in place only by the pins, isn’t it? It’d be safer if it was nestled like Type F
Using fuses on outlets is fake security. You can put two 10A devices on a circuit, and the fuses won’t help. What’s important is that you have fuses for each line.
All socket holes here are gated, too (Type F), but I have to admit there are grandfathered ones without gates in older installations. And we have 16A @ 240V.
I have to admit that the idea of switches in each outlet is in principle a good one, but it makes the outlet way larger than other types, and adds extra complications that can break (yes, I had to fight with one like this in the UK).
The fuses aren’t to protect the circuit, they protect the end and intermediate devices. The breakers protect the actual circuit.
E.g. you’ve got a thin flex for a low power lamp. You don’t have to worry about a short allowing 40A to flow down a 2A cable.
How many cheap import lamps do have an appropriate fuse?
And the short circuit 40A is better covered by a fast-acting breaker.
It’s not inset meaning that an improperly plugged in plug becomes a hazard.
Not true, the pins are sleeved so if it is improperly plugged in, you still can’t touch live parts.
-
The type I grew up with.
Type J is superior in every aspect. -compact, you can fit 3 plugs into an outlet while Type F only fits one for example. -robust. -cannot reverse polarity. -no fuse required as the law requires proper fuses in every electric installation with law enforced periodical checks. -round pins that cannot puncture your skin if you step on them. It’s hard to face the pins upwards anyway.
Type-N is even better, it’s essentially a Type-J with some improvements
Compact in one dimension, but it is very long.
This makes it awkward in tight spaces compared to something like a UK plug.You have this and variants of it, with the plug being recessed you could probably have it take up less space in all dimensions over the UK plug
G.
The plugs are shuttered, so they’re protected from being stabby-stabbed. The plug’s prongs are sheathed so live metal is never exposed, negating the need for recessed sockets. Compared to recessed plugs, it takes less force to insert/remove them, but the oversized prongs and their triangular arrangement means it can safely withstand more lateral stress than any other plugs. Every plug has a fuse appropriate to the appliance so every device has appropriate protection while also allowing any device to be used on any outlet - no need for dedicated outlets for tumble dryers. And the plugs are traditionally right-angled, so once they’re plugged in they only protrude about a centimeter, making it easy to plug things in behind furniture.
The whole ‘every plug has a switch’ thing is bullshit, though. That’s just weird.
The whole ‘every plug has a switch’ thing is bullshit, though.
There are way too many devices that will light up an led the moment you plug it in with no way to disable it.
So you can turn it off without unplugging it. Some devices say “unplug after use” eg. toasters, but instead just switch it off. Good for decorative lights, blenders, cats
i too unplug my cats before i go to sleep, every day
Type F is also shuttered (at least in modern installations), no metal is exposed if it’s only inserted half way because it is recessed and many plugs are also sheathed. Fuses in plugs are unnecessary, because there are circuit breakers (which also allow you to turn off the power to individual parts of the home if you’re installing a lamp fitting or something). They also work with tumble dryers and the plugs are also generally right angled and stick out no further than a type G.
Additionally the plugs are compatible with many other standards, non grounded plugs can be very compact, making things like USB chargers much smaller. And they won’t impale your foot if you step on them.
Sorry, but F is just objectively superior.
Ask any foot doctor, type G have injured a lot more people than type F have.
