Universal Travel Adapter

Universal Travel Adapter

Why do we need travel adapters?

In this age of standardisation, everything is built to international standards, things are designed to connect to other things (e.g. USB gizmos) - so why can't / won't they come up with a universal electrical plug?

Many devices do, others do not. It all depends on what the purpose of the device is for.

Items that are made to be portable, especially for business or tourist use, typically have universal power adapters built in. These are items like MP3 chargers, camera or battery chargers, and cellphone chargers. You will know that they can be used universally if the charger (or the device itself) says something to the effect of "100-250v" on them.

The problem here is that there have long been disagreements about whether AC or DC is better, and which voltage is best. The result is that each region has focused on its own standards and no international standard has ever been agreed upon. Even the size and shape of electrical plugs is something that has not found universal agreement, as anyone who has used a device in North America, the UK, and continential Europe has found out.

The real reason why no universal standard has been reached is that everything has worked out fine in each region. AC works, DC works, 120v works, and 220 v works. If a universal standard were chosen, it would force the power production companies in every other region to change most of their equipment at outageous cost. It would also force every single consumer of electricity in these regions - individuals and businesses - to either replace every single electronic device that they own, or buy converters for everything. This does not make much economic sense.

There was no problem to have each region develop its own electrical system as each region was typically isolated. In this day of mass travel, more people are forced to deal with the variations. Despite that, the cost to have a tourist/business traveller spend a few dollars on an adapter plug (or even a converter for older equipment) far outweighs the cost of changing every single electrical component in a society.

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