hey guys welcome back to how to switzerland sarah here today and today's video is another one in
our switzerland basics series so this is episode number three if you have not seen the other ones
i will link them right here as well as in the description box down below
so the whole switzerland basics series is really designed for those of you that are interested in
moving to switzerland and you want to know the real basics about life here and how to handle
kind of everyday situations so in today's video i thought we would talk all about you know
electronics plugs electricity so although this is not that exciting i feel like it is actually
really important because when i first moved here i was super confused about how things worked and
i just felt like a lot of things that i read online kind of confused me so i thought i will
put it in this video as simple as i can for you all right we'll just keep it real simple here
this is a swiss outlet so it looks like this of course sometimes there's slightly different
configurations here but this is a typical outlet now you have two plugs that you will see
a lot of in switzerland so this is a type j as you can see it is a mounted plug so it has
three prongs on it so this is what you'll see on like you know laptops and i guess other like
i don't know how you say like high you know energy using types of electronics and then
this is the other type this is a type c plug and as you can see it doesn't have the mount so this
is actually similar to in the us you know you have some plugs that are like really thick and
then some that are more you know like everyday use i guess so i guess i'll do a demonstration here
goes in like this so actually you can fit three electronics not with this this is
actually as you can see this is an adapter um but you can fit three of this for example
in here so it's kind of interesting actually probably not with this the goal is that you
can fit a three let me see so here we have one two and then you could put a third one uh like
so so as you can see actually here i have an adapter this is my curling iron and
you can see underneath here is a us plug and then i have this adapter over
the top here so let's talk about that quickly so if you are traveling in switzerland or relocating
to switzerland and you plan to bring electronics from a foreign country there are a lot of things
you need to keep in mind and the first one is that in switzerland the electricity is 220 to 240
volts versus in the us what is it 100 to 120 well 110 to 120 so it's much lower it's half
in the united states so you really need to keep that in mind because you want to make sure you're
only bringing electronics that are dual voltage which means that they work like this curling iron
for example is dual voltage it will work in the united states and it will work in europe or in
switzerland and the way that you can tell is by looking at the product here so as you can
see right here it is printed on ac 110 to 240 so that's how you can tell that it is dual voltage
because of that range so that means i can use this curling iron really anywhere and i only need an
adapter i do not need an electricity converter so there is a difference if this curling iron was not
dual voltage if i looked and it just said you know 110 and it didn't go up to 240 that means it's not
dual voltage and you could technically bring that with you to europe but you're gonna need to use
a converter on the end so a converter i don't actually have one but they look like this
they can be pretty small and these are supposed to you know protect your appliance and make it work
um when you have different voltage so this you know the electricity here is double in strength
excuse me for using the wrong words to describe this but basically it's twice as strong so if you
plug your non-dual voltage curling iron even if you have an adapter on it into the wall it will
basically uh fry if not the first time it will fry over time and in my experience i have brought over
a lot of non-dual voltage electronics and i tried to use an electricity um converter
with an adapter and i found that within a few months they all died even with the converter so
i recommend only bringing with you dual voltage electronics or electronics um that can handle
the voltage here in switzerland so things that are typically dual voltage are your cell phone
your laptop a lot of like razors like buzzers those are typically designed for travel
so usually they're dual voltage but you know it's best just to check you know i
just actually went around and here like this uh canon battery charger it says right on the back
100 to 240 oh sorry it's totally out of focus but you'll have to trust me there so i can pretty much
use this anywhere and if you are moving to switzerland and say you have a laptop okay this
is laptop charger you can see it has an american grounded plug at the end i would recommend
that you don't buy a universal um how you say plug adapter because look at how massive and bulky this
is it's they're also usually pretty expensive they can do every country which is great for travel
but if you are relocating you're going to want to get yourself a smaller one because you'll find
if you are in a coffee shop or in a library or something a lot of the times these are too bulky
to maneuver into where the plugs are and it can be a real problem so if you are moving here get
some of these little guys because you can put this on your laptop charger and it's really not
i don't think it's a whole lot bigger and this tends to be a lot more handy you can
leave it on it doesn't fall off and all that kind of stuff whereas this is like a massive
thing but i will link um down below links for all these plugs that are going to work in switzerland
and i would recommend that you buy them make sure you buy them if you're moving here buy them before
you come here because it's a little bit harder to find like this is a specific u.s to switzerland
plug which is a lot harder to find once you're here obviously it's easier to buy this in the us
and in the us you also have amazon we don't have amazon in switzerland so it's super easy to get
these kind of niche products for super cheap and just buy a bunch and just stock up on them because
you are going to need them especially i love these little guys here they're very very small you can
put an you know a regular us plug and uh that lives on a whole bunch of my electronics and i
hardly even notice it's there but make sure you really check which plug you are getting
because we know switzerland they like to do things differently they're not in the eu they're not in
the euro zone and their plugs are different than the surrounding countries so if you get
the wrong plug and look at this here pop quiz is this a swiss plug is this what was it a type j
it's actually not it looks very or sorry it looks very similar to this one the sea right
but it looks almost the same look at that but this will not work in switzerland this is what
i think they use i'm not an expert in all of the countries but i i take this when i go to germany
or france or like spain um most of europe uses a plug like this now it's a little bit strange
because if you have if you're coming from like germany or france or whatever your plugs are too
thick for the swiss outlets so if you're swiss or if you have a swiss plug and you go abroad this
will fit in a german plug because it's small right it will fit whereas if you're going the other way
around this will not fit because it's just like i can show you it's just too wide it just doesn't go
in um but again the other way around does work so if you have a swiss plug thing this will work in
germany france etc but keep in mind this will not uh the three prong will not which is why i have
this and just a small tip here let's say you're moving to switzerland from the u.s or from germany
whatever you might want to bring with you a power strip from your home country these are swiss
plugs obviously but you could bring one of these with american plugs and then you only need one
adapter on the end so you could just get your one swiss adapter and then you could plug
all your american electronics in here without having to have plug adapters on each thing that is
a good little tip and i have one other note here about what is called country coding or country
um locked appliances basically so this sounds completely silly and ridiculous
but when i first moved to switzerland um to go to college i brought my inkjet printer with me
okay i was a totally broke college kid and i'm like whatever i have from the us that's like
kind of expensive i'm gonna bring it with me in my suitcases because i don't want to have to buy
that stuff in switzerland so i had a pretty small inkjet printer that fit right in the bottom of my
checked luggage and i think it was actually dual voltage and i only needed to get an adapter so i
got an adapter put it on there got my printer all ready thought i was going to save so much money
and i got to switzerland and it definitely worked the printer worked no problem but
when i ran out of ink i went and i got more ink and when i put it in the printer it said
uh country coated locked and it did not allow me to print which was really annoying because
obviously i had already opened the ink cartridge and i could not return it to the store anymore
um so i had just spent like 40 swiss francs on ink and then when i installed it the printer said like
the printer basically knew i was using swiss ink and an american printer and it locked me out and
i couldn't figure out how to unlock it and then i basically had to get rid of the printer couldn't
even sell it because nobody wants a locked printer so that is an item i know is country coded and you
should not bring with you unless they've changed that hopefully they've changed that um also back
in the day it was the same with dvds i couldn't use like american dvds and swiss dvd players
obviously people don't use dvds anymore but just check anything that has like components
that go into it just double check that before you move over here that they are not country
coded and you're gonna get locked out so i hope i basically covered it let me summarize if you have
swiss plugs and you go abroad your two-prong ones will work in eu plugs but the three-prong ones
will not and if you have standard european plugs the prongs are too thick for switzerland
and make sure you get all this sorted before you come here because it's just going to be a lot more
affordable less stressful it's very hard to find these kinds of niche products in switzerland
surely there are websites that sell them but there's definitely ways to do it cheaper so that's
it for today's video i will link my favorite plug converters down below the ones that i use like on
a daily basis that i bought years ago maybe 10 years ago never had a problem with it and i hope
this video was helpful in some way you guys if you like this video leave it a thumbs up comment down
below what you'd like to see next we love doing this switzerland basic series but i want to know
what you want to know so leave your request down below and i'll talk to you guys very soon bye
you