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!

  • ShadowRam@fedia.io
    1226·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • zovits@lemmy.worldEnglish
      37·
      6 months ago

      The OneBlade has a transformer in the wall plug part, the actual cable going to the handheld unit is only carrying low voltage.

    • Corhen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      6 months ago

      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!

    • june@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      6 months ago

      Yea, one might be alkaline nimh while the other is lithium. Or maybe even just different flavors of lithium.

      • bort@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        does that matter? I though only the voltage and wattage would play a role

        • june@lemmy.worldEnglish
          112·
          6 months ago

          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.

          • DoomBot5@lemmy.worldEnglish
            42·
            6 months ago

            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.

  • HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    65·
    6 months ago

    Nice of then to make sure you cant accidentally blow up your new razor because you assumed the old cable would work if it fit.

      • HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        171·
        6 months ago

        Plugging in a random cable from some random manufacturer is not a thing that most people would consider doing. (Furthermore, I doubt that any 220V cable would fit, these connectors on the picture are smaller than they look).

          • HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            13·
            6 months ago

            Yeah because they are standardized. However, these are too big to fit in that razor and the only reason these cables are interchangable is because they follow that standard.

          • Chee_Koala@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            These cables only supply power straight from the net, which is why they are interchangeable. I have some trimmers/shavers that use a similar cable as the one OP is showing, but they are much smaller then what you are showing. The trimmers have an adapter somewhere in between (because incorporating it into a handheld device would be bulky and… why would you want to?) So, because the power is ‘adapted’ it’s no longer interchangeable.

  • rbesfe@lemmy.caEnglish
    58·
    6 months ago

    The old cable supplies 15V, which would fry your shaver that is expecting 5V

    • intensely_human@lemm.eeEnglish
      181·
      6 months ago

      I think the real sin here is making the shaver dependent on stored charge instead of just letting it run immediately after being plugged in.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        6 months ago

        It’s a common safety feature for wet & dry razors. It’s so people don’t take them into the shower or bath while it is plugged in.

        • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          I think commenter meant trimmer should be able to work druring charging

    • Magister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      6 months ago

      I guess not, the USB one is 5V obviously, but the other one can be 12, 7.2, 8.4, 3.2, whatever

    • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      118·
      6 months ago

      Figure eight connectors like that input line voltage. So even if the charge voltage is different, the chargers still require the same line voltage.

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
        133·
        6 months ago

        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.

        • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          313·
          6 months ago

          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.

          • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            6 months ago

            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.

  • ra1d3n@lemm.eeEnglish
    37·
    6 months ago

    I have both of these and one charger is 8v and the other is 15v.

  • Brownian Motion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    27·
    6 months ago

    I can tell you for certain, I measured my plug phiips (foil and ‘one’) and they are both 14VDC. So short answer is that the plug charger would blow up the usb trimmer you have (which is 5VDC).

    The reason I know this and measured them, was because I wasnt sure the two plug chargers were the same, and I didnt want to blow up my philips one.

      • Brownian Motion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        This is true, but something about being an Electronics Engineer makes you want to check. (I didn’t even trust Philips to get it right, but they did.)

        I didn’t go into detail, but simple Dashed/Solid line doesn’t tell you the whole story. Those simple wall warts are not fancy switch mode, or even old school rectified. I measured 14VDC unloaded, which I can probably guestimate in experience, to be a 9VDC loaded reading.

        The actual reading on wallwarts are generally untrustworthy, unless its a thing from Samsung or apple, where the circuitry are what you would expect (switched etc).

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.worldEnglish
      166·
      6 months ago

      They used to be an insurance company. How can I trust them knowing that?

      Wahl for trimmers.

      • dirtbiker509@lemm.eeEnglish
        51·
        6 months ago

        The one on my phone is though? It even knows when it’s wet and won’t charge until it’s dry.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        Many wet-dry rechargeable razors don’t let you run them when they’re plugged in. Power cords + water = ⚡💀 ⚡

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      6 months ago

      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.

      • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        6 months ago

        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.

      • charles@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        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.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        6 months ago

        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”.

    • moncharleskey@lemmy.zipEnglish
      261·
      6 months ago

      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.

      • hikaru755@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        6 months ago

        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.

        • moncharleskey@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          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.

      • aesopjah@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        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.

  • MotoAsh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      6 months ago

      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.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        6 months ago

        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.

        • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          6 months ago

          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.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          6 months ago

          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…

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    6 months ago

    Philips was a great company decades ago. They’ve really gone to shit. Especially their CPAP fiasco (Respironics recall).

    • The Pantser@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      6 months ago

      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.

  • Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    15·
    6 months ago

    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

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
    141·
    6 months ago

    They all do this. Every time.

    I’ll await the EU enforcing USB-C here too.