Green Plug multiple charger cuts energy waste

By SmartPlanet on 08 January 2008, 12:53pm

If your computer desk is anything like ours, you'll have a jumbled web of wires stuffed underneath that help you charge up your laptop, digital camera, MP3 player, mobile phone and whatever other gadgets you've got ferreted away. If only someone would invent a standard charger for all sorts of electronic devices. Well, thankfully Green Plug has done just that, and even better their handy devices will help you save energy too by cutting the power once your electronics are fully loaded.

Although the news about Green Plug's new system leaked out in December, our tech-smart pals at our sister site CNET.co.uk have been able to get a first-hand look at it while hobnobbing at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) -- and they're pretty impressed.

Green Plug devices are cleverly modified multi-port USB hubs in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You power all your devices via the ubiquitous USB connection, so you can forget those charger bricks and tangled power leads. As USB wasn't originally designed for power transfer, Green Plug has designed a more efficient connector in the USB form that can charge devices from digital cameras to drills with up to 24V of juice.

But the really, really clever bit is that GreenTalk talks both ways. This means that Green Plug hubs can tell you how efficiently a device is running, even displaying energy usage stats onscreen. When a device such as a phone is fully charged, the hub kills the power -- eliminating wasted electricity. It's even clever enough to manage different power levels to different devices.

At the moment you need a small adaptor for each of your devices, but the long-term goal is to see Green Plug firmware built in to devices. To do this, Green Plug is licensing the GreenTalk protocol to manufacturers for free. Yes, free. Pay attention, Sony.

The cost benefit of universal chargers is obvious as it means that manufacturers won't have to supply chargers, but contrary sods that most tech companies are, it could be a while before we see the end of own-brand connections. The mobile industry's recent decision to standardise chargers is an enormous step in the right direction and can't be praised highly enough. Promisingly, Green Plug head plugger Frank Paniagua Jr is meeting with T-Mobile here in the UK next month.

All this means you can plug in your laptop, phone and -- ahem -- novelty massager, and go to bed, unburdened with worries that they'll be gobbling power all night and thus caning both your 'leccy bill and the environment. You just can't buy that kind of peace of mind -- mainly because the Green Plug hasn't quite made it to Europe yet. But keep an eye out on CNET.co.uk for more updates.