It's all very well Nokia saying that it's starting to introduce better on screen alerts to get people to unplug their phone chargers from the wall in order to save energy and the earth. But I can't see most people doing it. Why don't companies simply make chargers/adapters that don't heat up when there's no device drawing charging current?
Read on in the full article.
Seriously, isn't it a bit overkill, because, basically, they just say "We have a new dialog"...
As Steve said, they'd better work on improving the charger.
I'll check on the web if they had a PR when they changed their toilet paper to a moe recyclable brand in their Espoo office.
Adding a message just occupies some until-now-unused NAND-flash (it wouldn't be there, if there had not been enough unused flash ..), so it is just some development costs, but no manufacturing costs. Making charger shutdown completely when not charging would most probably require some additional components, and thus up manufacturing costs, too.
I've got a Proporta USB battery charger - that automatically detects when there's no current after a minute or so and shuts down.
Am I doing the bit for the environment by charging that from my already powered up laptop or car?😊
What would make even more sense would be to ensure that all mobile devices use the same size charging socket; this way, you would only need one or two chargers instead of umpteen. We currently have a (switched) socket with about 8 chargers plugged in (iPod, iPod shuffle, Sony Ericsson (x2), Siemens mobile phone, laptop (x2), Palm Zire 72); very annoying.
We bought an official "Palm Zire" charger from Proporta a while ago, only to find out that the Zire 72 had a slightly smaller charge socket than the Zire 71, meaning that the charger plug wouldn't fit. Proporta changed it no problem, but it did seem to be a ludicrously badly thought-out decision, with no obvious technical advantage...
I don't actually understand this, because all the Nokia chargers (and other chargers for that matter) that I've used lately don't heat up if they're not charging.
Try it with a phone, when it's actually charging the charger will feel hot but when the phone is full the charger will cool down and be completely cold by morning if you've left it plugged in overnight.
I suppose they might be talking about the same effect as a TV's standby button, that there's a much smaller current that's still being drawn even when the charger isn't being used?
doing something that wouldn't use electricity at all and that would still wake up when something was connected(behind a voltage converter and a regulator).
the chargers don't use that much electricity if there isn't anything pulling current out..
Lol...
I think we are all doomed. We've known about global warming for years and this is the best we can do? Give the user a pop-up message telling them to unplug the charger!?
At work I've been told that we can't even turn the lights off at night (for security reasons apparently: the security cameras don't work in the dark, lol).
Everyone has also got a new desk phone that is an ultra-advanced thing that has a huge lcd screen. It gets very warm, even when it's doing NOTHING, wasting lots of energy.
At home I'm doing my best. I've got a One-click that turns everything off when I switch the PC off, so all the phone chargers get automatically swithed off with the PC.
"the chargers don't use that much electricity if there isn't anything pulling current out.."
Unfortunately, that's not true for many chargers/power supplies. I recently read about a DAB radio that consumed 10 watts when switched on, and 7 watts when switched off; ie. approx 2/3 of the power consumed when the radio is on is power wasted by the power supply itself; many phone chargers are no better than this, though they are generally getting better...
Apparently, in Australia they've got around this problem to a certain extent by introducing a 12v "mains" circuit in houses, reducing the need for wasteful chargers/adapters.
We're doomed for sure, but not because we've known about global warming for years and continue with our evil ways. It's because all through the 70's, the big scare was global cooling and you don't read enough about things to know that. A new ice age it was to be. It would bury the great cities of the world under glaciers! Global warming theory based on the idea of carbon emissions has been known about for years, yes.. since the late 70's. And it was eventually rejected by anyone worth their doctorate. Until the politicians decided otherwise.
Atmospheric CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS very obviously FOLLOW WARMING TRENDS. Warming trends follow SOLAR ACTIVITY and can be very accurately predicted on that basis. But Al 'My wife is the enemy of free speech' Gore failed to show you that graph, and failed to point out many other factors that are key to interpreting all of the other graphs he presented. He also forgot about the carbon emissions of volcanoes, the oceans, animals.. all of which are very, very, very much greater than anthropogenic emissions.
The reason why we're doomed isn't because people won't change their energy hungry ways.. it's because GODDAMNED FOOLS LIKE YOU believe this utter garbage and NEVER USE YOUR OWN HEADS to find out the facts for yourselves. And that doesn't just mean listening to two sides of a debate. Go look up the data and interpret it for yourself.
I'm sick of idiots like you getting swindled, because I myself do not look forward to being told how few (if any) children I'm permitted to have, nor do I relish the idea of having a breathing tax levied on me. All of the people who are in official positions that say 'Reduce, reduce, reduce' are freaking pigs on their own account and absolutely do not practice what they preach. They only convince you to give it all up to them.
I'm saying all this here because I was just looking for a better Nokia charger, and was bugged when I saw that energy politic crap in a discussion about phone chargers. I mean, the energy draw of a phone charger is practically zero in the big picture of energy consumption. Go have a look at the power transformers outside your nearest advertising agency, or watch a McDonalds, any McDonalds overnight to see when they shut all those lights off, and then take your complaints about overconsumption to them. What about the servers that are making up this here internet? Millions of computers take lots of juice. Maybe folks that are so concerned about trifling little power draws should stop using the evil internet too!
Anyhow.. who knows of a good 6280 type charger adapter that doesn't crap out after a month of use? The fine wires connected to the jack always go intermittent and then break, and I've gone through 3 of them already. I was wondering if it was a result of the charge heat.. the wire in the adapter is only a couple of fine threads.