Designed in the 1940s to combat a foreseen shortage of copper in Post-war Britain, the design also put significant emphasis on safety. The third prong, not present in many other contemporary plug designs used around the world, makes accidental shock difficult as it acts as an earth. It is also the longest prong, therefore first and last to enter an electric main.
However, it is bulky. It was designed for use with lamps and of course the household wireless, and never had sleek tablets or mobile devices in mind. It means that for us Brits, and many of our commonwealth cousins, packing a plug for a mobile device leaves an annoying bulge.
In an age of optimisation, continuous redesign, and sleek product development, the humble 3-pin plug has become antiquated.
The challenge
The challenge this month is therefore to redesign the humble 3-pin for the present day. For a start the plug should be able to be stored or packed away more easily, so making it as thin as possible and preferably without the annoying prongs protruding outwards causing that bulge, is essential. In addition, any design changes must not compromise safety – in fact greater safety should be sought.
This is, however, not a complete redesigning exercise. The three pins must remain. Rolling out a new plug system to so many countries and users is well beyond the remit.
The plugs should also reflect the growing use of USB to charge a variety of devices. It is therefore appropriate that any plug should be standalone, and allow USB cables to be plugged in to it... preferably more than one.
The plug should of course be rugged, so it’s unlikely any solution will match the bulky virtually indestructible lumps currently in use, and they should also work on all fuse ranges up to 13A.
As always we have a solution in mind which will be published in next month’s issue, but if you have any entertaining or interesting solutions then feel free to leave a comment or email the editor at tfryer@findlay.co.uk.
Our solution to redesign the humble 3-pronged British plug, comes from Hong Kong based Oneadaptr, which has recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to get its ‘Flip’ foldable plug launched onto the market.
While there have been some foldable plugs before, Flip is the thinnest yet at just one third of the size. Flip has set out to optimise the trade off between size, ease of use and features using USB ports and power bank for today’s high-tech mobile devices.
The folding design allows the thin enclosure to be realised, while also hiding the pins away when not in use, stopping them scratching screens of tables as they are stored in a bag.
The devices can also come with an optional external battery, so when plugged in can charge both the internal battery and any connected device concurrently, as well as being able to provide charge even when not plugged in at the mains.
The company said: “If we make Flip too thin, concerns arise regarding both the sturdiness and the ability to add new functions. We found the 18mm to be the right balance between thickness and features.”
