I’ve spent a frustratingly long time this week looking for the charger for my new shaver. Previous shaving devices plugged into the bathroom socket - you know, the shaving socket. I vaguely recalled that this one plugged into a regular wall socket for some reason. So I set about hunting for one of those classic power bricks, presumably lurking somewhere in my bedroom. But maybe I’d put it back in the packaging, or accidentally chucked it in the “electronics to be recycled” box with the old shaver. No luck.
After searching high and low over several days, with my facial hair growing increasingly unkempt, I admitted defeat. I headed to eBay looking for chargers. eBay, of course, had many chargers, each displaying a unique collection of ridges and sticky outy bits, like an electrical version of Darwin’s finches. Behold the 7000 series, the 5000 series, the Q series. No, no, no. None of these looked quite right. I typed in the exact model (it’s an S3144, in case you were wondering). All of a sudden I was presented with a page not of chargers, but of USB cables.
The proverbial lightbulb flickered dimly over my head. I headed back to the bedroom. Lo and behold, there was the USB cable, right next to all the other USB cables. I had been so fixated on looking for a chunky traditional power brick that I had not even considered that I might be looking for a dainty modern* USB cable.
This feels like a significant milestone. Apart from my long-suffering toothbrush, all of my chargeable devices are now USB-powered. It’s taken decades, but we got there. Standardisation doesn’t happen overnight, and the transition can be confusing, but over the long run it’s wonderful.
* The USB Implementers Forum first assembled 30 years ago, in 1995. We thank them for their service.