NO, I am NOT planning on trying this.
I watched on the news about [a girl who was electrocuted after using her phone while charging in the bathtub and it fell into her bath.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg6nPthiuLs)
This made me wonder if it would also happen with a magnetic phone charger. Or would it only happen with a phone charger that connects inside the charging port?
FYI, I am talking about a magnetic phone charger like this one, while it is plugged in and actively charging: [https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger](https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger)
This question might seem dumb, but some of us aren’t well-versed in this topic. Sorry if it’s a dumb question. I legitimately don’t know.
In: Engineering
no. unless the plug part of the charger shocked you, or the phone itself. but the induction charging would not shock you
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Your phone uses low voltage DC power to charge. The “brick” or “cube” converts wall voltage AC power(which can electrocute you) to low voltage DC power which can’t. So unless you had the cube on an extension cord and the whole thing fell in the tub it wouldn’t shock you.
to clarify what others are saying: even dropping the end of an ordinary phone charger into the bath should not electrocute you for a variety of reasons. Any danger does not come from any sort of “the phone charger performs this function in this manner, which is dangerous”; it comes from “i am holding a wire which is connected, or very nearly connected, to a Mains power outlet.” Now, GFCI ought to click off if theres enough water on the outlet to cause issues, and most phone chargers arent sending mains directly to your hand. With that said, assuming the safety of all other things in the situation, no phone charger will electrocute you in the bath. If you want to be the absolute safest, use a portable charger battery bank instead of a wall wart.
If the part with 120V power from the wall gets in the water, yes, you could shock yourself. The power “brick” portion you definitely don’t want in the tub with you. That’s no different than bringing a toaster in with you.
Would the wireless charger itself via the induction make the water dangerous? No. It wouldn’t really do much of anything.
Would a USB cable in the water plugged into the power brick (left outside the tub) make the water dangerous? Also, no. Voltage is too low, the power it could put in is too small, and it would only short to itself rather than to ground via piping and potentially through you.
Electroboom on youtube i think did a video on this exact incident: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHGo-52wCDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHGo-52wCDc) he does a pretty good job explaining when it would or wouldn’t cause issues, and what protections are in place to hopefully protect you.
Like others have told you, if only the end of the cable falls into the water, there’s only low DC voltage (5v) coming out, which is not enough to affect you in any way. There may be higher voltage (for example up to 20v) once you have the phone connected and the phone “talks” to the charger and tells it that it can handle higher voltages.
There are risks of electrice shocks if the main body of the adapter falls in and water gets inside or gets access to high voltage AC input. Even then, in lots of places, outlets or electrical panels have built in protections that should disconnect the AC outlet as soon as they detect a short circuit or something out of the ordinary. But it’s not.a good idea to rely on this, and some older houses don’t have these protections by default.
So… here’s a simple (and imperfect) way to think about volts and amps. Volts is like the speed of a moving object. Does speed kill? Well… yes… but a cotton ball hitting you at 100mph will do far less damage than an equally-sized metal ball at 10mph. So, in this analogy, amperage is the weight of the object.
Cell phones using both low voltage (5V — although chargers can be higher) and very low amperage (0.5A). You can look-up the specifications for the version of USB you’re using. “Every normal USB-C cable must support at least 3 amps of current and up to 20 volts for up to 60 watts of power according to the USB PD specification. Cables are also allowed to support up to 5 A (with 20 V limit up to 100 W of power).”
TL;DR the “juice” coming from a charging CABLE (not the thing that supplies power to the cable) should be harmless. OTOH, that brick/inverter/etc is converting 120VAC (typically at 10A-15A) to DC. So… yeah, that’s a bit more dangerous. Well, that’s true in the USA in most residential settings, at least.
I’m frankly surprised that a bathroom outlet doesn’t have a GFCI outlet at least on the same circuit. I wouldn’t want to “test” this… but, in theory, that GFCI SHOULD break the circuit (and prevent death).
A magnetic phone charger is not going to be more protective than plugging it into the wall.
So far, I’m seeing a lot of incorrect answers stating that USB doesn’t provide enough power for electrocution. A lot of these answers are assuming the old USB standard. But with the power delivery of USBC, it is theoretically possible to be electrocuted, though very improbable.
In order to be killed by electricity, the electricity would have to pass through your heart. In a scenario where a typical AC appliance is dropped into a bathtub, the electricity flows from the appliance through the water and to metal fixtures of the bathtub, usually the drain. How’s the electricity is flowing through the water, it also will flow through your body and cause electrocution. However, building codes require that all outlets near water have a special circuit breaker to turn off the electricity if this is detected. In the story you are talking about, the girl was using an extension cord plugged into a regular outlet that did not have the special protection, and the cord was frayed which is likely what actually caused the electrocution.
At any rate, getting back to the point about the path of the electricity. With a USB charger, the electricity will flow from one pin of the charger, through the water, to the other pin, so it is unlikely to actually pass through your body and cause any harm. But there are reports in the medical literature of USBC chargers coming into contact with jewelry and causing pretty severe burns.
If its true what ppl say abouth USBC having 5 Amp than yes its very posible to die from it.
Voltage isnt usually the thing that kills you. Its the Amp’s in EU we have 220 volts and 16 Amp.
A taser works by lowering the amps so you can increase the voltage (they are connected in a balanced way like that)
Generally a tazer wont kill you while they can output 20.000 volt or more easly.
If you reverse it and raise the amp and lower the voltage it will increase in deadlines.
And a magnetic connector reacts the same as a normal connector while in water.
Just be carefull around water and dont use extention cords to have a nice bath….
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