I accept that for portable devices that run off battery, having a completely seperate power supply makes a lot of sense, especially for small devices like phones and MP3 players. Why though, do appliances which will rarely if ever, move from the place they are installed need to have their power supply seperate from the appliance? I performed a quick audit at home and found 11 things that fit this category, most of which usually sit in a big tangle behind my desk.
This came to a head for me over the weekend. As part of my ongoing renovations I have put the centre of my network in a new cupboard under the stairs, which is the central point of the house. In this location I have moved my switch, cable modem, router/wireless and NAS box. Each of these devices have external power supplies. No matter how many options I tried I have not been able to prevent this rather simple setup from becoming a clutter of cable. The problem is that each power cable has a big chunky box in the middle of it which makes it impossible to neatly cable tie them out of the way.
I understand that there is probably some efficiency for companies that have multiple appliances to go throught the AC power regulations and design once for an external supply, rather than once for each device. That does not help me though. Even the design of them, with the input and output cables on opposite ends, makes the cable management of fixed devices hard.
If we cannot eliminate external power supplies can we at least do one of the following in order of preference:
– Have a common DC power standard that can use a single power supply for multiple devices. With each appliance having different voltages, size of connector, and core polarity its hard to mix and match. If I could have one power supply connected to AC under my desk, and DC cables going from this to the device. I would also not have to worry about which adapter goes with which device when I move my desk again.
– Put the input and output lines on the same side. At least then the cables can be looped or run through a cable guide easier. The adaters could be hooked to the wall with the cables neatly running down from them.
– Integrate the plug into the adapter. Even though this crowds the power board sometimes I find it preferable to the ‘block in the middle’ approach.
I have a few items up for replacement in the near future, when I do I am going to try and find items that don’t have external power. I don’t know how much luck I will have.