I sometimes feel like everything around us is reinvented, refined and perfected. However, when it comes to more standardized things like our power outlets, faucets and homes in general, I’ve seen little innovation. Why is that? It can’t be because there is no technology to support it. There are plenty of cool things out there that will reinvent the way we plug in our computers to the power grid for example. The current power outlet design is simply too old and ultimately unaccessorized. There has to be some innovation in this field that we don’t know about. These were my thoughts last night when I was casually coding away trying to optimize things a little bit further.
As it turns out, there is innovation in this area after all, but it’s far more complicated than you might think. Getting a new power outlet out there and making it the standard in the simplest way possible is the best way to go. However, since there is already something doing the job, getting people to switch (especially in millions and millions of homes) seems like it would be almost impossible. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try, right? Power outlet design could be so much better.
Damjan Stankvic is equipped with skills which make his creation called the Letout Outlet (power outlet) one of the coolest innovations when it comes to how we plug our gear into the wall. Instead of having one or two power outlet slots, this particular thing is ejectable and presents up to 4-5 power outlet slots when pressing on it. It’s ingenious really. Think about it, you would have one power outlet slot presented when the outlet is not ejected. But if you need more, just press the power outlet and you will get 4 new power outlet slots to power your gear. Never again would you have to use bulky power outlet expansions in order to power all your gear. This should totally be standardized in every home. This particular example shows the European power outlet slots, but it wouldn’t be too hard to port it to the American standard. It is so genius as a matter of fact that it actually won the reddot Design Award in 2009. This is innovation at its best!
Innovative Power Outlet Design
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