[IxDA Discuss] iPhone, who's buying... /sustainable design

[Alexander Baxevanis]

<putting on my electrical engineer hat>

USB charging obviously drains some energy from your laptop's battery
or makes it drain more power from the plug if it's plugged in. So it's
not 'free', in some cases it may actually be less efficient because of
more conversions in the energy path. e.g. from the plug to the laptop
battery, then from the laptop battery to USB, from USB to the correct
voltage for iPhone charging etc. When you have a USB cable connected
to your computer with nothing on the other end, it does not consume
any power.

By the way, I don't think it's rocket science to make a charger that
consumes nothing when the phone is not plugged in. But it would
definitely add to the design and manufacturing cost and with mobile
manufacturers' profit margins being pushed down, investing in
eco-friendly chargers is probably still low in their list of
priorities.

A couple of months ago, Nokia launched "the first mobile phones to
include alerts encouraging people to unplug the charger once the
battery is full" (http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1125979).
Sounds great on paper, but are you really going to pay attention to
this alert when you're grabbing your phone and rushing out of the
house? Or will it be just a little annoyance that people will just
learn to ignore?

If we want to pursue sustainable design, it has to be like any other
form of design, taking into account how people behave.

On 7/11/07, David Malouf <dave at ixda.org> wrote:
> question to Jeff,
> Does using a USB to charge (leaving the cable in the USB port, also
> drain electricity like leaving a charger in the wall? Just a
> question. B/c I charge using USB w/ the dock and not using the plug.
> (my blackberry did this as well).