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?
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Any change in the dc input/amps? Because that’s the only reason I would give any credence to it.
Philips was a great company decades ago. They’ve really gone to shit. Especially their CPAP fiasco (Respironics recall).
Philips sold most of their IP and companies use their name. Hue is not made by them either anymore. The CPAPs are made by another company that is owned by Philips. It’s all just a name now.
Good ol’ late stage crapitalism!
Yea, id fix that with a lil creative carving with a pocket knife. Recently did this with a brita pitcher. They go to great lengths so you cant refill the cartridges with activated carbon. They underestimate my determination.
A few companies make reusable Brita cartridges which are designed to be taken apart. But I’m glad you found a way 😁
My guy this is why they changed the plug, so people wouldn’t plug the wrong cord into their shaver. They both come with one; did you think they were just like “fuck people who want a spare”?
Man Apple really got into all your heads with their lightning cable shit didn’t they
Bad idea in this scenario.
The previous model of shaver in this case took straight AC power with the transformer inside the unit, while the new shaver take 5V from a USB charger as the transformer. You’ll blow up the unit if you do this.
That is so annoying.
Philipps is a shady company and I support anyone who decides not to buy from them ever again.
With the Hue bulbs the force you to share data, so I had to manually install an old version of the app just to not share data - no other way to opt out. So I can’t say I’m surprised they pulled something like this.
tl;dr: Keep away from Philipps!
Hue bulbs, Zigbee dongle, raspberry pi, HomeAssistant
Boom no data sharing
Is the charge voltage the same on both?
The voltage regulator is inside the unit. Usually these are just straight AC power cords.
I guess not, the USB one is 5V obviously, but the other one can be 12, 7.2, 8.4, 3.2, whatever
Figure eight connectors like that input line voltage. So even if the charge voltage is different, the chargers still require the same line voltage.
These are smaller plugs than the figure-eight cords you’re thinking of that plug into old boomboxes, Playstations, etc. They’re DC voltage, not AC.
The WTF here is not that the manufacturer changed the connector slightly, it’s that they were too cheap to include the AC-to-DC converter part of it like they did on their older models, so OP has to buy a USB wall wart to power the stupid thing. The fact that he can’t use the old charger with the new shaver is just an irritating side effect.
I have the same razor. I promise you that it’s not DC. It’s a regular plug that passes 120/60 to the device.
Any company that’s passing 120 (or god forbid 240v) into those tiny little plugs with almost no insulation between them is begging to be sued for electrocuting people. No device used in the bathroom should be passing straight 120v through a connector like that.
Yep. It’s not too easy to find usb-c shavers yet though :/
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.
Could you shave (heh) a few millimeters with a cutter or something?
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.
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!
Neither of them take AC power. I have an older one similar to OP’s old one. It uses a wall wart and the input is definitely DC.
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…
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.
I know a lot of RC brands did this too. They didn’t want people blowing up their Li-On batteries with old chargers, or getting complaints because it takes three days to charge.
I bought this one from Conair because it is rechargeable with USB-C.
And how is it as a device?
I like it, the different clip lengths are holding on quite well, and I do like the adjustable ones when trimming my beard.
It’s also relatively quiet.
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.
We should all use public chargers. I heard they’re safe
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?
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.
Why would I need to? 110v outlets aren’t regularly equipped with Data transfer capability. And last I checked, there weren’t any USB-C -> 110v data transfer dongles available…highly doubt a hotel is gonna retrofit them for collecting your shaving habits.
Because that somehow sounds both sane and also unhinged, good luck with that.
You’re projecting a bit much.
Your ignorance of the potential for harm due to it’s unlikelihood makes me think electrical engineering might be the wrong discipline for you.
I think you may have a horrible misunderstanding about how the real world works. As well as the specifics of USB-PD, and other such things; like paranoia, and schizophrenia.
Nothing you just said has any basis in reality or reasonability. Most people charge devices off of USB-PD power bricks, which are not going to be converted to transfer data across 110v lines for the purposes of collecting the data from your shaver. The amount of infrastructure and added cost that would bring is absolutely moronic at scale, and much more easily done through wifi or bluetooth, without even bother with data-over-power.
So you flat out do not believe that USBs have data capabilities as a blanket statement?
Powerline communication is a thing.
You’re right, it totally is. Almost nobody uses it. For good reason; it’s prone to noise, slow speeds, circuit division, and licensing costs. It’s an argument of practicality here…it’s not practical, it’s not profitable, so it’s not gonna happen.
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.
I think the bluetooth/wifi functionality on most modern electronics is much more worrisome than 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.
No, shavers should not use USB C. Because in developed countries you cannot have USB in the bathroom. We have special shaver sockets and they’re not USB compatible.
Then you should refine your laws. Because my shavers all use USB C; and the EU has mandated USBC in specific products, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to expand that.
and the EU
Yeah, I live in Europe, lol. Sockets in bathrooms are very specific here.
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
Since when is a BMS advanced technology?
My next shaver will be USB-C. It’s now a standard for charging whatever you want.
Make sure the voltage and power requirements are the same. Maybe the old one cannot deliver enough juice for the new one.
That’s one reason a lot of device designers go for USB C proper: it supports multiple voltages and multiple power levels, and in a way where the devices shouldn’t be able to pull too much power from a smaller charger. (assuming they implemented the spec and didn’t just use the plug anyways) In theory, one smart charger with enough oomph could charge anything that sticks to spec up to 240W.
Yup. Lots of conflicting guidance here, but OP needs to check the actual power requirements for each. If they’re the same, then okay, Philips were kinda being dirtbags with the plug. If not, whether different DC voltages or one feeding AC into the shaver body itself, then the bigger sin is not changing the plug MORE to make it more obvious they’re not the same.
Remember the good ol’ days where it was barrel jacks or raw terminals regardless of what the device actually worked with?
ahhh, those were the days … of easily breaking things.
My favorite was devices that just said 12v X Amps, but never specified center positive or center negative.
Fuck you Sony, stop using center negative. It’s a crime against humanity.
looks like the old charger was 15V, while, if the new one is USB-A its 5V
Ouch, non-standard plug for a standard power source? That’s almost worse. If only certain insanely rich companies didn’t do it as a standard practice even after the EU tells them to knock it off…
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
From what I can tell, the non-USB OneBlades charge at 4.3V, not 5V.
It’s probably a small enough difference that a 5V charger would work fine for the 4.3V shaver, but it wouldn’t work the other way around.
One is for charging the other is for power. There’s a huge difference. At least with my phillips electric - the power inverter is inside the shaver. The cord is just a bog standard C-type power cord.
Your new cable is a charger cord – because it’s already pulling the correct DC voltage from the USB port.
Last shaver I bought I made sure I could charge it off usb
