X-Mas Wish: A Universal Charger
This is our “charging station”. The place where we connect our mobile phones and other devices to charge their batteries. It's also where our Internet uplink arrives and our Max! cube controls our heating system:
Looks neat and tidy? Well, only until you open the drawer below:
It's a mess of wall warts. Most of them provide USB power, but some deliver different voltages. Not only is this a mess, I also doubt this is energy efficient.
So here's what I want for Christmas: a universal charger that can provide power for all my devices. Let me start with a drawing:
It would take standard 220V AC and provide 4 220V AC sockets for whatever can't be powered with DC power directly. Note the spacing between the sockets to avoid any problems in the cases where bulky wall warts have to be used.
But the main feature is on the left side, where DC power is provided. The top six slots are standard USB-A connectors to provide 5V USB power (with full power just as an OEM mobile phone charger does). No USB hub functionality is needed here. I only care for charging.
Below the USB connectors are three simple coaxial connectors. Each of them can deliver a DC voltage between 1 and 15V. The voltage can be set through a little screw right next to the output. These coax connectors are for connecting special multipurpose cables to connect just anything that usually comes with it's own wall wart. It's basically what this product provides for a single device.
Sounds good? I think so too. Unfortunately this device or something similar seems not to exist. I'm no electrical engineer so maybe there is some obvious reason why this never could work, but since all the individual devices do exist I have no idea why not.
So here's a Kickstarter project I would back 