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!

  • kent_ehEnglish
    42·
    9 months ago

    Is the charge voltage the same on both?

    • Magister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      9 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·
      9 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·
        9 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·
          9 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·
            9 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.