Today we're looking at usb charging sockets
so first of all what does the customer want out of their socket outlets gordon well it
may surprise you gary that customers don't get excited about circuit protection but they do
get excited about the finish of the socket and this range from Hamilton we've looked at on the
channel before Joe has done a fantastic review that looks at the huge range of finishers and for the
electrician those installer friendly features as well but we're going to look at in this video the
USB element of these socket outlets why is it such a hot topic at the minute gordon uh well
everyone has a proliferation of battery devices that need charging and we're not just thinking
smartphones now I mean even our trusty we have SpeedE that we use on the on the channel
has this charger that plugs into a usb outlet and and yeah it just grows all the time cameras
and the problem we're seeing is that these white chargers right may not be coming in the box in
the future no iPhone 12 has been launched and it doesn't give you the ability to have a charging
unit in it what's the thinking behind that well the european union wants to stop that
that basically from happening because everyone ends up with a raft of these in draws across the
house and eventually they end up as e-waste and obviously that's not good for the environment
so they're trying to stop manufacturers shipping them trying to adopt the standard plug
which would probably be usb based and and so that we think this will drive obviously more customers
to want these fixed usbc charges you stated there usbc charging ports gordon what's your thinking
behind that well that seems to be the direction of travel at the european union heading that that
will be the standard plug and socket arrangement for battery rechargeable devices and you know
we've already seen signs of that creeping in samsung have usbc on their latest smartphone
apple have brought it in on the ipad pro and some of the laptops also have a usbc charger in them as
well let's have a look at that usb cn then gordon so that's the that's the usbc yeah so that's our
usba and that's the legacy lightning connector that apple still have on the phone but actually
the other end the new cable that ships with the iphone 12 will be USB c it's just like
that okay and then let's not affect so our legacy devices and you know so here's our we are charged
we mentioned earlier that's still got the usb a but obviously that goes direct to the charger so
if i was a an electrician installing these sockets today i would be fitting a combination
of usbc and usb a right so air to cope with those legacy devices that everyone's got lying around
and c to be ready for that perhaps that next smartphone upgrade that you're going to go for
so we're selecting our socket out there with our built-in usb charging ports in them and now we're
interested in the power output from those ports gordon yeah so it's interesting that the sockets
themselves are covered in bs 1363a I'm sure everyone's had a copy and fully digested it
was last amended in 2018 and does cover usb sockets the actual power output must be labeled
on the socket themselves okay let's have a look at that then have a look at these ones here gary you
will see that it's clearly labelled on each socket five volts at 2.4 amps which is 12 watts if you
do your maths and that's the same for both the usb a and the usb a and c combinations we've got here
so interestingly some manufacturers play games with the numbers on there so you'll see sort
of yeah the voltage and the current rated under a bank of sockets and so you never really know
what you're going to get from each socket we did a little test here with these uh with the ones
here from hamilton with these handy little um usb charge monitors okay that we picked up and they
they're nice uh useful bits of kit and we plugged in two smartphones into each outlet the usbc and
the usb a they're both charged at around seven and a half watts each uh which you're going to say is
below the 12 watts but it's the actual phone and possibly the cable that dictates the charge limit
but what was interesting to note there wasn't any power sharing going on between the two sockets
and that's sometimes obviously what you see with these outlets that you know one phone will have
all the charging one will have none there's no arguments in the household with these ones it's
equal charging from each outlet however nowadays everybody wants faster charging gordon you're
right gary there's a there is a limit to what you can ask this 13 amp socket to do because obviously
when you start thinking about faster charging that needs more power in a shorter period of time right
and it's a look at the back of the socket here you can see that's where the charging module sits
you know if we want to put more power into this footprint you know it's going to have to grow
the socket and i'm sure the electricians out there don't want to be digging these into 47
millimeter deep back boxes everywhere so it's the real estate behind the sock outlet that's probably
limiting the power that we can have out of it yeah i mean perhaps perhaps in the future we might see
you know one of the sockets going yeah and that frees up more real estate but in the interim
hamilton have launched one of our friends a euro module that will give us up to 45 watts of power
so let's have a look at a front of a euro module that we love so much gordon okay so there's a
few things going on here the first thing you'll notice is the reference to current has vanished
and voltage and it's been replaced by two sets of letters one pd one qc so qc is quick charge
pd is power delivery but what they are in fact are protocols that are used by device manufacturers
a little bit technical there but what happens is the device will communicate with the charger
and between them they'll say hold on the charger i have 45 watts of power available
and the device says well actually i can take 45 watts or actually don't need 45 watts and then
the current and the voltage will adjust to enable optimum charging to take place so as an example
gary let's plug an iphone into this usbc port and we'll see that power delivery negotiation taking
place so we've plugged in and the phone's thinking it's getting five volts it's a half an amp there
it's trying to increase the current and then suddenly it flips into a new mode of operation
where you'll see the voltage and the current have gone up and we're now taking significantly
more power into the device and significantly more power means obviously that device now is
charging faster yeah exactly and that that's the that's what you get in this in these sort of quick
charge or power delivery protocols and the euro module itself is not a 13 amp socket outlet is
only delivering the power for our usb either a or c and a combination plate that we're looking
at so of course that can just concentrate on giving the power required for those devices
yeah and um you know so what we really forget is that it's future proofing because this is
a fluid process going on that that rate of power charge is depend again on the device
and on the charger and obviously devices are getting updated all the time however gary at this
stage i must you know i have a small confession there was a white one turned up in the box from
from hamilton and i thought i'd indulge myself in a bit of future proofing at home where i already
have a legacy a dual usb a charging module that only outputs 10 watts in total so time
for an upgrade to keep up with with technology okay well we're not a diy channel so hopefully
you didn't show us how you connected it in gordon but i'd imagine it was an easy process
yeah just pull the fully existing decorative faceplate off and obviously click in a new module
as if by magic we're back in there yeah so that's an easy process and i thought i would give it the
ultimate trial and that's to try it with a macbook pro which obviously has a usb
adapter so i'm putting in a usb to usb save lead into the hamilton charger that normally comes
with a 96 watt charger i thought will it trickle charge or something i'll at least charge off the
hamilton module so put in the put in the in the charge monitor and i was pleasantly surprised to
see that i can obviously get a significant amount of power into the unit so if that would say left
overnight that would that would be fully charged by the time you come to use it in the morning
could you use the usb a at the same time gordon well yes obviously still got those legacy devices
so yeah i've also plugged in there the uh the wireless charge device i have for for an iphone
in the same charge module that just shows what a fantastic advantage is using euro modules you
managed to remove the 10 watt one and replace it with a 45 watt one keeping the same surround and
the light switch mechanism on the other side gordon yeah and let's not forget they also do
a single module version as well so it's a single euro module this it doesn't have the quick charge
or that power delivery we've spoke off so for me this one is the winner that you'd go for but this
will support up to 5 volts at 3.1 amps of charging as well so that again is a useful if you want to
build up a combination plate as we've seen there now the other thing i haven't tested obviously is
tablets so a lot of people have tablets and that's yeah obviously you want to type i think
you might use by a bedside and you'll want to recharge there so i thought i'd just test out
this samsung tablet okay we're into samsung now so it's quite an older model this doesn't have usb c
at receive that's got one of those micro usb yet another cable combination uh to look at so i'll
just try it in the existing type a socket there okay you can see there gary so that's charging
quite happily i'm getting about yeah just about seven watts of seven watts of power there the
device is charging it's not it doesn't got any other sort of quick charge function on there so
i'll just try it in our usbc in our quick charge module so you'll see it hasn't really it hasn't
changed to a vastly different voltage you know it's still taking about seven and a half watts
so the charging protocol is the same whichever device we plug it into yeah so now let's try it
with a with an eye an ipad so against ipad pro we've got here so there's for the samsung market
okay so that's really good though one nice little advantage of that small tablet is actually you
can charge it into the socket outlet itself be interesting to see this large ipad yeah so this is
this is the biggest sort of ipad platform you can get that's the ipad pros over here let's bring the
camera in again gary so again we've got our usbc module okay i'll plug it into the socket itself
right so a little look and what do we got so you can see that's taking no charge whatsoever so it
hasn't as it says no there's basically not enough power in this charger to keep that device happy
okay so then i move down to our uh quick charge or the power delivery uh outlet on the usbc we'll see
that reassuring uh reassuring ping it's set itself at 15 volts at the moment and yeah it's taking
just short of 20 watts there so so often charging off and charging so that's a key if anyone's
installing um charging sockets and the people in the house have got ipad pro or you know then
you're not going to get far with a usb socket you need to be looking at one of those euro modules to
to do that perhaps forward thinking electricians now are going well perhaps i could have dedicated
circuits for our euro modules perhaps like in the old days where we used to have
a lighting circuit maybe sockets either side of the bed switched as you come into the room in
order to operate those table lamps something like that yeah a little bit little five amp
circuit that was the one yeah i could definitely see that because you tend to want the usb outlet
and possibly different locations the way you plug something in you might have a short lead so you'll
definitely want them on a desk so if anyone's got an area at home possibly where they work from home
and you know there's always that risk you forget to take your charger with you when you go out
you don't have that when you've got sort of fixed in-store chargers i don't know what the kids are
like in your house gary but i don't know that doesn't solve the problem with the leads but
yeah it certainly starts the missing charger that you can't find absolutely hunting around for the
other one because somebody else is using them as always at efix we're interested in your feedback
are you currently installing usa and usbc in your socket outlet and what you're thinking on that
are you using euro modules is it something now you consider using in the future
please leave those comments below and me and the team at efix will get back to as many as we can