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!

  • UnityDevice@startrek.websiteEnglish
    43·
    8 months ago

    To be fair though, they just need to make everything USB-C anyhow.

    Careful what you wish for. Putting advanced electronics into very simple devices will just make them fail a lot faster.
    Some old device just needed 12V over a barrel jack to run some motor or light and charge the battery and it lasted a decade - only failed because the battery got old. New one now needs a state of the art power delivery chip to negotiate the right voltage and current, and all over a very fine pitch connector that will fail if you look at it wrong. Not looking good on the durability front at all.

    • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
      61·
      8 months ago

      Are you Apple engieneer? Because I have no idea why PD chip is state of art for you

      • UnityDevice@startrek.websiteEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        I don’t work for Apple, but I am an electronics engineer. Just don’t be surprised when your simpler devices start failing.