Another great spot from our pals at GreenBang.
Earlier this week at our EnergyCamp unconference we were talking about chargers for laptops and mobile phones. You know they keep consuming electricity when they are not plugged into the device, right? If not please unplug them when not in use. Its a small thing that will cut your electricity bill.
David Berlind said: “wouldn’t it be great if you could get a charger that switched itself off when your laptop was fully charged?” Great idea David! Well it seems Nokia at least is way ahead of us.
Well done Nokia for innovating in this area. Now a request – please stop screwing us with proprietary power inputs. Its not even remotely funny that my N95 has a USB port for data and a separate pin for power. In order to cut waste in raw materials (namely metals) the Chinese government has mandated standard USB ports for data and power. You want to do business in China, right? Well please fix your manufacturing processes, and cut your addiction to revenues from proprietary power interfaces. USB power for the win.
From an innovation standpoint you’re hurting yourself with the addiction to these high margin cables. Compare with the iPhone. Power is not the only lifeblood – so is data. When you plug an iPhone into a Mac or PC it synchronises data, and charges the phone. If Nokia wants to encourage a similar synchronicity it should go with the standard. Energy and Data are both lifebloods.
Give it two years and iPhones will be 50 quid. What then? Start the fightback- make synchronisation more natural. And you’ll have an advantage if you make the plug a self turn off model.