Our office recently installed new wall plugs with both the Type D plug outlet (South Africa) and a USB point to charge your phone straight from the wall, without the need for the little white charger that you’d otherwise use.
IF we can use electricity straight from the wall into the phone/powerpack/battery through a USB cable, what is the use of a charge and how exactly does it work?
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The electricity in your walls (in South Africa) is 230 volts alternating current (AC) at 50hz. The USB standard, which your smartphone is designed to use, supplies 5 volts direct current (DC).
To get the electricity from your wall into your phone, you need to convert AC to DC and drop the voltage. The power brick or “wall wart” you plug your phone into is a transformer and adaptor, which does just that.
The USB plug built into the wall is the same, the transformer is just built into the receptacle and hidden behind the wall.
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