Ask Lemmy

All outlets should just be replaced with IEC C13. Robust and compact.

Well the answer is obviously the UK plug some of those others are just plain bad. The question is are they all made largely obsolete by USB C ? and is that the closest we are likely to get to a universal plug and socket?

Still trying to figure out why Germany is listed separately from the EU.

The UK plug is nice. Very robust, it connects to ground before it reaches the power line and has a switch but it's clunky.

Name a more painful thing to tread on than the British plug. Bonus points if it's incorrectly wired to be live.

I have a strong preference for the German and Swiss types, but I think we can all agree that Japan massively fucked up. They took the already shitty American plug and just forgot about the ground.

My favourite is this one, it makes things go brrrrrr.

Couldn't find a good photo of the socket online, only the plug. Cba to go take a photo of the socket right now, but I do have it at home and it's fully functional.

Edit: Searching in Estonian yielded results for the socket too. Someone was auctioning a set 7 years ago.

I'll fetch the popcorn.

Type I.

ElectroBoom (Youtube) made some points about Australia's Type I. Seems it was very hard for him to electrocute himself. Lots of breakers on the outlets. I mean he did electrocute himself, but he was always going to.

This is the most definitive argument that type J is superior to all others:

Image showing an arrangement of 3 swiss plugs in the same footprint as one french one

The UK plug is over engineered and looks like something from a steampunk universe, but I think it’s the best plug overall.

There was two different ways you could have ordered this alphabetically, and you failed to do either.

It's obviously the one in the country I live in. All the others that I have had zero experience with are from Satan.

Swiss Type J, because you can have three of them, taking up no more space than one German or French plug.

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.

what's type D, ??

As a Brazilian, that makes me so sad. We used to have a type that could fit European and American plugs, but they just changed it. Never gonna let it go hahaha

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.

Brazilian Type N looks like it's not a big deal, but the shape and depth are actually extremely good - you get a fantastic connection that never wobbles but also comes out when you need it without having weird pins or moving locks that always end up failing in some other designs. It's also compact and stacks nicely.

I think I would like Australia's over the rest.

The recessed circles I feel like they would gather dust and grime in there if you don't use it often and be tough to clean out.

I like the angles prongs as well as the switch to turn it off and on.

Type-M, as I live there. Very convenient, all pins round shaped

The British plug has a lot of features that are supposed to make it very, very safe. It'd be interesting to see if there's a study out there that tries to make apples-to-apples comparisons of electrical accidents in different countries. Do those features actually work out in practice?

The US plug is bad, but does that actually translate into more accidents? Hard to say. If you can do the study above, then you can start making the argument for switching to something else.

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"

I really like the power outlets in the EU. You don't have to fart around with different sized prongs and the voltage is higher which makes things like tea kettles far more efficient.

Type E is inverted in the picture.