International Power Cord: Your Visa to the World

Every country manages electricity in its own way. So our computer power cord, power cord for the phone, and other gadgets are also different. We buy our gadget, bring it home, unbox it, and plugin that cord that came with it to give it that initial charge to start using it. However, most of us never think about it. 

The trend of putting power plugs is going away, though. For a few years now, when you bring home a gadget — only phones for now really — you don’t get a power plug. The idea is to decrease the packaging size and limit elements that go into making a plug. If you have one power plug, you have them all. 

While this sounds great on paper, there is an adoption curve to this. You use a number of different gadgets throughout the day: your phone, laptop, smart home devices, tablet, e-reader, book light, power bank, wireless headphones, Bluetooth speakers, and so on and so forth. If you go look at the cord that came with each of these, you will see that your single-plug-life is not coming true anytime soon. 

It is not impossible to buy all your gadgets to charge them with a single cable and plug, but there will be compromises if you only favor one feature. 

So you go out and buy a brick that works with most of your cables; you are probably still compromising on charging speeds of at least some of your devices. This only solves your problem domestically. 

What happens to this plug when you are traveling?

How will you plug in your laptop? This is where an international power cord comes into the picture. Of course, there are laptops that power via a USB C port, but the majority of them don’t. But all you need is an international power cord, and you are ready to get anything done from anywhere! 

Not only do you need an adapter for your computer, but you also need them for your other devices. These adapters are specifically designed to manage electricity that flows through the country’s grid, and your device can take. They adapt the electricity to best suit the device. 

Let’s pack your tech bag for various trips:

1. Trip to Canada: Canada has two kinds of plugs: one with a grounding pin and one without. Both have flat parallel pins. The country operates on 120V at 60Hz. 
2. Travel to the United Kingdom: The UK operates on 230V at 50Hz. Their plug has 2 rectangular pins arranged in a triangular manner. 
3. Backpacking across Europe: This trip will need you to bring a flat, two-pole, round pin plug that can handle upto 250V. 
4. Incredible India: India chooses to use round pins, two for smaller, lighter things, and three for things that require the grounding pin. The pins in a three-pin plug are arranged triangularly. It has the same voltage and speed as the UK’s plug. 
5. Australian way: Australia has a plug that has three flat pins arranged triangularly. It operates at 230V at 50Hz. 

There are a few other plug types and you can find more details here. 

International adapters can come in handy in your home country as well if you want to get a gadget that is not available there and wants to import it. Certain phones are often sold only in a few markets across the world. But if you want to ship software or apps for it, you can import them and use an international adapter for it. 

SF Cable is home to all power cords, no matter the device or country. You can browse our site for the one you need, and if you are not sure, we are more than happy to help. Happy travels!