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!
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.
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…
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.
Are you sure they charge with the same specifications? This might just be to avoid potential fire hazards & damage.
Yea, one might be
alkalinenimh while the other is lithium. Or maybe even just different flavors of lithium.does that matter? I though only the voltage and wattage would play a role
A lithium battery needs a charging pattern that reduces voltage as it gets closer to full. And overcharging a lithium battery gets real spicy real quick. You also don’t want to charge them too fast because spicy.
Nicad and nimh batteries (I erroneously said alkaline above) don’t, you just blast it with a steady voltage until it’s done, with some nuance for nimh that’s not worth diving into here.
Makes 0 difference. The charging circuit is in charge of that logic and will accept whatever voltage is supplied (within spec) and step it down to what the battery needs.
thanks!
The old cable supplies 15V, which would fry your shaver that is expecting 5V
Is the charge voltage the same on both?
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.
I have both of these and one charger is 8v and the other is 15v.
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.
God, why don’t they just make it usb-c PD and be done with it?
Because USBC isn’t watertight
The one on my phone is though? It even knows when it’s wet and won’t charge until it’s dry.
Many wet-dry rechargeable razors don’t let you run them when they’re plugged in. Power cords + water = ⚡💀 ⚡
You mean cable or socket?
Here’s my only issue with making everything in the world USB-C…
Different cables have different functions or even are able to handle different voltages and amperage and right now, it’s not clear what cable holds what functionality.
If there were some sort of international color code standard or something, it would be perfect. As of now, I have to keep track of what cable goes with what device.
Every cable should be rated minimum 5V 3A, have functional CC, power and data(Dp, Dn) pins as Type C spec requires. Which means it should also be capable of USB PD(still doesn’t need data pins).
AFAIK every in-spec cable should be able to carry 20V 3A.
Problem is not bad standard, problem is non-compliant cables.
If all your devices are USB-C PD rated then you only need to have cables and wall adapters for your highest rated device as all others will only demand what they can tolerate when the handshake happens after plugging in the cable. The only exception would be devuces that don’t follow the spec but use the plug for cost saving reasons which is a completely seperate issue.
I’m with you. Our phones, the laptop, the Switch, even my vape pen, all use USB C, but most of the cables we have only work on half the devices. Kind of defeats the purpose of being “universal”.
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They used to be an insurance company. How can I trust them knowing that?
Wahl for trimmers.
Pretty sure they never were an insurance company. They’ve always made (consumer) electronics.
Yeah, think you are right and I got my wires crossed. I hear so many random facts at work and they all blend together.
Regardless, still Wahl. Have used Wahl for a decade or more to groom and have had zero issues.
Haha, no worries. Turns out there is a Phillips insurance company, just with a double L, rather than a single L.
They started out as a lamp manufacturer, not insurance.
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…
are the voltages actually the same?
I don’t see how it could be. One plugs into line voltage and the other 5v usb. The reason they changed the plug size is probably to keep OP from frying his new razor.
One plugs into line voltage
Well, but that’s not what’s coming out of the end that you plug into the razor. The wall plug for it contains a transformer that steps it down to 15V. Would still be a bad idea, but it’s not line voltage.
After seeing some other comments I see that is the case. The one I had plugged straight in with the transformer built into the razor. That is why I said probably though, since I couldn’t know for sure.
I don’t know how to check that, also can’t find the specs on the old one.
FYI, to figure this out you would look at the part that plugs into the wall. there’s a bunch of writing on it. at one point it will say something like " input: 120-240 VAC, output: 15 VDC 0.5 A". that’s true for pretty much all transformer bricks. like if you want to see how much a USB brick will supply it will say on there “5V 2A” or whatever.
I only checked the (new) one that is USB-a only and that didn’t have any writing on it.
USB is typically 5v.
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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.
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
A few companies make reusable Brita cartridges which are designed to be taken apart. But I’m glad you found a way 😁
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!
If they are the same voltage just take a razor and shave some of the material away, I had to do this to get a c7 connector to fit into my xbox one, the rubber was just molded too far to fit
Shave
All that shaving just to shave.
The charging requirements have likely changed so the plug was redesigned sup you don’t fry your new shaver using the old plug/adapter.
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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
Hm, indeed. Maybe I was reading some old version or there was similar law that didn’t require Type C specifically.
