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!

  • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    102·
    9 months ago

    It’s capable of data transfer…but to a power brick in the wall? Are there people who plug their shavers into their PC?

    • Tarogar@feddit.deEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      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.

      • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        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.

        • Tarogar@feddit.deEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          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.

    • FiniteBanjoEnglish
      29·
      9 months ago

      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.

      • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        9 months ago

        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.

          • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            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.

        • FiniteBanjoEnglish
          211·
          9 months ago

          Your ignorance of the potential for harm due to it’s unlikelihood makes me think electrical engineering might be the wrong discipline for you.

          • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
            101·
            9 months ago

            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 bothering with data-over-power.

            Amazon has the “Sidewalk” network, and you wouldn’t even need to do anything fancy other than put a $2 ESP32 or NRF into the shaver to communicate and transmit data…forget trying to hijack it over USB…

            • FiniteBanjoEnglish
              210·
              9 months ago

              So you flat out do not believe that USBs have data capabilities as a blanket statement?

              • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                61·
                9 months ago

                Bro usb has data transfer capabilities. But if you connect to a power brick, which basically converts AC to lower volt DC and delivet power. It might be a problem only if you directly connect usb to wall withouth the power brick

                • FiniteBanjoEnglish
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  Ah my apologies, when you said “power brick” you meant a converter for a wall outlet. That term isn’t standard in my region so I assumed you meant an outlet with USB capability, which is what I was discussing. They’re actually becoming very common, so I was expressing my distrust in making them a new standard.