The Gadget Agenda: Awkward plugs are driving me up the wall
One plug points up, another points sideways, and my cable drawer resembles a museum. USB-C has solved one everyday irritation, so can manufacturers tackle the rest?
If you're like me and you own lots of gadgets, you'll own lots of plugs and leads. AC-powered electrical tech needs to be plugged in, and they're usually going into a socket in the wall.
But I'm getting increasingly frustrated by the shape of these plugs. Many gadgets use simple, standard, three-pin plugs, and that's fine but, tech that runs off a lower voltage needs a small transformer, and these can get quite bulky.
That bulk in itself isn't the problem, but the way they point absolutely is. Let me explain. I have a strip adaptor next to me in my office, which has two standard plugs and two transformers plugged in. I want to mount it on the wall, but one transformer points in a different direction to the other.
Had they both pointed down, this would be easy. Or if they pointed up, it would also make my job of wall-mounting a doddle.
I once owned a smart alarm clock from Lenovo which had a transformer that stuck out to the right-hand side. And that's absolutely idiotic, because you can't then plug anything else into the socket next to it, let alone clear the on/off switch.
Why can't we standardise this? Why don’t manufacturers of these little voltage converters get their heads together and agree on a direction. Up or down, I don't care, just one way or another and let's stick to it.
And while I'm at it, can we stop meddling with USB now please? USB Type-A is going to be around for a long time yet, and I can accept that. The only issues it causes is figuring out which of the seemingly three directions to rotate it when you're fumbling around to plug it in.
USB Type-B still appears from time to time, but seems to only be used for printers and I can't understand why. Then there's the other Type-Bs. Mini USB is justifiably defunct, and its successor Micro USB rarely gets a look-in these days, but I keep some leads in a drawer just in case.
And this leaves us with the modern standard... USB Type-C. This is, no arguments please, peak USB. This is everything we've been waiting for. It's compact, fast, easy to plug in, and bi-directional. It can be plugged in whichever way up you fancy.
This is, surely, where we get off the bus, so to speak. There is no need for any other type of connector, and even Apple has acknowledged this, having cut its silly Lightning apron strings.
With every change of plug and socket we've had to endure, us tech lovers have had to fork out for new peripherals, leads, and even gadgets.
Can we now just stop the silly musical chairs, acknowledge that we've finally got a connector type we can settle on, and make everything else in the future compatible with this one type of connector.
It's going to take a long time for the makers of charging blocks, wall sockets, power banks, portable power stations, and especially vehicles to completely switch their outputs to solely USB-C, and we'll all have to wean ourselves off the USB-A cables we once spent a lot of money on, but it'll be worth it in the end.
Although, knowing my luck, I'll have just finished kitting my entire life out with USB-C on the very day they announce USB-D. If that happens I think I might just become a monk.