Outlet Plug Falls Off Once Devices Are Charged

Do not want. When I plug in a device I want it to charge and remained fully charged until I'm ready to unplug it and go. Imagine doing this with say your cell phone charger. It finishes charging around 3-4am then unplugs itself. You wake up at 8am with a 50% battery.

I'm all for saving electricity and what not, but I have devices plugged in for a reason, and it's to be ready to go when I'm ready to go.

While your comment makes some sense, there are other ideas to consider. When a some battery cells are fully charged, and continue to be charged they are damaged. Over time this damage begins to become more noticible and drastic until the battery dies prematurely. Cycling energy is more effecient.

If you are having your charging cycle done too soon than perhaps it would be wise to use a tiered charging system that trickle charges your charge over the time you plan not to be using your device; however, most people charge their cell phones at home no more than 15 minutes later stick it on a charger in their car. This person than goes to lunch several hours later and charges the phone again. After work say 8 hours later, they again recharge the phone in car.

No device is perfect for all consumers but lets talk about a charger that terminates recharging and has a deactivated device, say my mp3 player, or camera, or even my video camera. I can leave it on and know that it will auto shutdown.

You need a new cell battery not a charger. If your cell battery is @ 50 % after 3 or 4 hours on standby you either need a new battery or a new phone all together.

I was just using that as a general statement. Obviously your mileage may vary but suppose I said it finished charging at midnight when I was sleeping and it was 8 hours later. Point being, I want a full charge when I wake up.

This reminds me of my toaster. I put my toast in and it pops up...it's still not brown, but it's hot. I put it back in and as I push the slider down, it buzzes and won't let me put my toast in because it's already hot. I have a feeling this may be like that in the end.

You have a weird toaster, my friend.

Many women could learn from this elegant simplicity if applied in the bedroom. Just pull it out when you're done and you don't have to see the darn thing again until you need to.

Better yet, imagine this thing falling at 3AM and scaring the crap out of you...

I think it's great. I normally charge my phone in the afternoon. I unplug the charger from the outlet as soon as the phone is fully charged. No point in leaving the charger plugged into the wall outlet. All I would be doing is paying the electric company for something I didn't need or want in the first place. I could also use the device to avoid overcharging the battery. Sometimes I forget about the phone.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen and the idea to unplug devices that at best pull nearly .001mA there are thousands of more productive ways of increasing energy efficiency before you get to unpluging small electronic devices. Stupidity like this calls for turning the AC down a couple of degrees and putting on a jacket too bad it is too cold for AC.

It's an Apple toaster. It only has one setting, and HOW DARE YOU FOR WANTING IT COOKED DIFFERENTLY!!!

Sounds awesome for some items I use , like a turned off phone or laptop , or even a portable game console.

What about when it's -30 Celsius out? I'm cranking that furnace as high as it goes!

Maybe we need to just design devices to use less power when at idle/off! What a novel concept!
I'd find this a nuisance more than anything else...

hey, it's an idea - a good one.

At the first commenter: you have a busted battery. My phone (which is OLD) can still stay on standby for about a week on a single charge; essentially, because I start charging it only when the battery's about exhausted, and I leave it until the charge is complete - not much longer when I can pull it off.
On the other hand, people I know that spend their time plugging then unplugging their phones and overcharging them soon end up with a phone that can stay up at most a couple day, or on a 20-min conversation.

I'd rather forgo 10 hours out of my phone's weekly charge, than forgo none and have it last only a couple days.

@anamaniac: indeed. Personally, I exchanged my computer's PSU for a 80+ one, and I got only good things to say about it:
- it's much less hot
- since the system gets colder, fans spin down more readily and save some more power
- less fan speed = less noise
Thus, there is less power wastage from the PSU directly, less power wastage from the fans, temperature is lower so components wear down slower, less noise from the fans... Performance stays the same, and the premium I paid for the 80+ is rather rapidly getting paid back by power savings (electricity is not exactly free where I live).

If they could make phone chargers that disabled themselves when the phone is done charging, it'd be great - since they've decided in Europe to standardize phone chargers on USB type B plugs starting this year, this could even be made optional by third parties - for those who don't like it.

I agree with cycling batteries...but here is the kicker.

What if that person uses the cellphone as their alarm clock? I've found it dead in the morning when going to bed with a full charge showing. Searching for signal all night has a way of draining a battery. Well, either that or the battery meter is broken on a brand new phone. I'd take ruining the battery over inconvenience any day. And yes I use a normal alarm clock as well, but the power goes out often enough to warrant two systems.

I'd think it'd be great for a cellphone charger and things of that nature. But heres the thing to get a savings in a reasonable amount of time the thing would have to be really really cheap. I'm talking less then 10$

Unfortunately this is something that stupid people will buy because they think it will save them money, and their right in about 20-30years it will have paid for itself lol.

at all the people replying to the first guy...i have a smartphone if i use it full bore for 4 hours its about dead... same way with most phones maybe hes using it as a internet modem at work cause hes on the road. if you do that it will eat your battery alive. or maybe hes just on it constantly. most phones only have 6 hours of talk time before there dead. my phone only has 250 min which is just over 4 hours so his battery may not be bad as you all think. o and alot of smart phones have this feature by stock

Apparently I do too.

That's how all thermally regulated toasters work. Before there were nifty solid state timing circuits, the toast setting was merely a maximum temperature at which the toaster would shut off. Given that the heating cycle is deterministic (given consistent voltage) the time spent toasting will always be the same for a given setting when starting from a base temperature.

Wow, that seems like it took a lot of explaining. Hope someone learned something.

I am not sure, while we paying for each bit of electricity we use. we are worried about saving it. I know saving is good. but, less we use electricity, the more we will be paying per unit. because these greedy companies will come up with some excuse for increasing the rate.
The price we pay right now should be budgeted for necessary updates in their system, and not just pay to their top executives.
But for this device. Innovation is always good, i just do not want to consumers save energy and pay for extra devices and pay for higher rated energy.

How long can you manage to go without charging? My lord. I have a smartphone that's about a year old, if it has a full charge it will run for at least 3 days with no use. Typical use shortens that quite a bit, but if your phone can't even idle for more than a day without killing the battery something is super duper wrong. No phone should have a standby time of less than 24 hours, most all are rated far far higher (in the hundreds of hours). Of course as a smartphone owner, I do have sympathy for the intent of your argument as it is nice to leave the phone plugged in while I'm not mobile; but the power wasted in doing this does add up quite a bit.

Lets try thinking about another way this could work. How about setting the current threshold just a little lower, and integrating the release mechanism into the charging brick? If they have a novel powerless disconnect it has a zillion applications. What if you could plug your phone in, push a 'start' button on the charger, and it would power the phone until the current going to the phone was at or near 0. This way, it only disconnects after you unplug your phone. It saves you from having to unplug your phone AND the brick in order to completely shut off the charger, and it lets your phone idle on the charger if you want it to.

You could extend this concept for TVs, computers, and other 'vampire' devices by putting a charged capacitor or low power battery on the power-on circuit, so that your soft-power button or remote control could still bring the device back to life if it has been off for some time. Considering how much is wasted by appliances in the 'off' position, careful use of such a technology could go a long way to reducing energy consumption.

The Article Title Reminds me of the Wraith on Star-gate Atlantis

How about just get rid of solid state?
I use Belkin's remote controlled power strips for computer desk and TV / entertainment area. Kills power to everything when I go to bed. Why is this even needed? Why can't we just have electronic devices that are off when turned off. Not halfway off...or almost off...just dead off.

This is bad. Lithium ion batteries have more longevity if they are kept charged, and charge up less often. Charging reduces efficiency because while running on battery, it loses energy through the internal resistance of the battery, then loses more when the battery is recharged. Running directly off ac power, through a DC adapter, is better in the long run.

The extra heat also reduces the lifetime of the battery, making more trash for the landfills because the battery needs to be replaced sooner.

I know this from experience. As a support tech, I knew a lot of laptop users. The users who frequently went on just battery power and charged it less often also had to have their batteries replaced at around the 1.5-2 year point, while the users who mostly went on AC power had their batteries last much longer, to the 3-5 year point. Granted, this was a "mostly" type thing, and there were some exceptions, but only on the AC power users side. Some did have to have their batteries last longer, but those who went on battery power most of the time never had theirs last longer than 2 years.

Falls out? Why not just shuts off?

You have to blow in it before you push the slider back down.

Bro, I have never had a device in standby use 50% of it's juice in a couple of hours. Even my old, worn out cell battery. NEVER. As a matter of fact, is some devices keeping the cord plugged in after it's done charging will start to discharge the battery. It can cause all kinds of problems. Devices need to be unplugged immediately after a full charge is present.

hmm. thats pretty sweet. hope you have your device secured to what ever its sittting on. Seems like the power cord might drag it off the table if its not resting on or supported by something.

For all the people that think batteries last forever on cellphones just google "droid eris battery life" Out of the box the battery drains in about 8 hours of standby. Of course it can be extended by shutting off all the e-mail/facebook updates, disabling the wifi etc. but then it sorta defeats the purpose of having a smartphone.

Leaving either a NiMH or Lithium Ion battery plugged into a charger once it's fully charged will not damage the battery. Both of these types of batteries have protection built in that will prevent over charging. Many battery chargers even monitor the battery's capacity and trickle charge it only if the battery starts to lose its charge. This is especially usefull for NiMH batteries since they have an insanely high self discharge rate.

My 6 month old Samsung Eternity keeps a charge in standby for about 4-5 days. My company phone, an unknown LG slide model from AT&T, lasts over a week in standby. (I never get any calls on that thing, and rarely get calls on my personal phone.)

My previous experience with phones has been similar. My old Motorola Krazr would last about a week between charges if I didn't get any calls, up until it was a little under 2 years old. Then the battery up and died without warning and wouldn't run at all without ac power. (I had to keep that phone for another 2 months so my contract with Verizon would run out and I could get a new phone.)

So, cell phones do have very low power consumption these days.

I still stand by my earlier statement that it is better to keep them on the charger and run the phones off ac power. discharging and recharging batteries wastes more power than running off ac power directly.

Granted, if the device is not hooked to the charger, it is better to disconnect the charger.