[micw]

Almost always when I'm in a country that does not have European (CEE) plugs and sockets, I feel uncomfortable. All CEE combinations have very solid touch protection. It's almost impossible to touch a metal pin of a plug when it's so close to the socket that it might have contact. When I the see the "flat" style sockets plus the full-metal pins I wonder if it's just a bad feeling or if way more people gets accidentally electrocuted with that kind of plugs/socket than with our CEE types.

[zdragnar]

Despite being fairly careless when handling them, I've managed a fair few decades without once shocking myself.

With that being said, I would be delighted with CEE, BS or almost anything other than NEMA anything.

The 120v plugs aren't the worst thing since they usually have some good gripping points, and the 50 amp plugs usually have a handle on the back, but the 30 amp plugs typically have no finger indentation at all for gripping and I feel like my fingers are going to slip over and around every time I pull one out.

[Symbiote]

I'm only a tourist when I visit places with NEMA sockets, so I'm sure I see much more worn sockets than a resident of America.

But I often find sockets that have a loose grip on heavier plugs, like a phone charger, or a NEMA-CEE adaptor.

(Half my experience is in Central and South America, where maintenance is probably worse — though in Africa old CEE or UK sockets are usually OK.)

[UltraSane]

I have lived in the US my entire life and I have touched the live contacts of a plug exactly once. It tingles.

[Symbiote]

I agree (Except British plugs which are also fine if made properly¹).

Denmark made installing CEE (the French version) sockets legal in 2011, but the only place I've seen one is a friend's house — he's German and swapped the sockets when he bought it.

¹ Hong Kong also uses British plugs, and this seems to have led some Chinese manufacturers to make non-compliant, unsafe plugs which fit — and nowadays with Amazon, AliExpress etc selling any old rubbish they are sometimes seen in Britain.

[otherme123]

I am mainland european, but I like better the UK plugs having a fuse and being non pluggable on unearthed sockets: it is common to plug type G appliances to type C sockets. If only they had the safety depth of the CEE instead of being at surface...

[xenadu02]

US style plugs and derivatives (and Australian, Japanese, Brazilian, etc) - all invented by Hubbell - are "good enough".

Are they objectively good? No. Do they regularly fail, cause fires, or shock people? No.

Even my kids when young understood how to grip the plug without touching the metal contacts and to this day still have not been shocked. In theory can something fall and hit the pins just right to cause a short? Sure. You could also get struck by lightning. In practice it just doesn't happen very often.

For the US/North American NEMA style there are some improvements and some clever things about them. Modern receptacles have shutter doors that stop you from putting anything into the holes unless the ground pin or neutral pin unlocks it first. Many plugs also cover the rear part of the hot/neutral with plastic so if the plug is not fully inserted there is no exposed metal.

The plugs also prevent mixing voltage and amperage. The typical two vertical blades (5-15) are for 15 amp circuits. 20 amp circuits (5-20) have one horizontal + one vertical blade. The receptacle has a T shaped slot to match - that way you can plug a low-amp device into a high-amp circuit but not the reverse.

Similarly the 240v version of this plug (6-15/6-20) has the same property: 15amp and 20amp versions. The 15 amp is two horizontal blades. The 20 amp is one horizontal + 1 vertical but swapped places compared to the 120v version. I do wish more builders installed the 240v receptacles in kitchens in the US. There is no technical reason we can't have higher power kettles and whatnot. If code required these in garages and kitchens more appliances would be available for them.

(I find it insane that Brazil continues to be dual exclusive voltage; all of North America is dual concurrent voltage. Every home/office has 120v and 240v available. In Brazil it depends on what state/city you live in - some get 120v, some get 240v. Even worse they use the same standard plug design for both so you'd better hope the plug is the right color or has the right sticker. And you can't be sure you can take electrical appliances from one city to the next! At least they should have adopted different plugs for different voltages.)

The huge advantage of these plugs is compatibility. We already have them. The cost to change designs is massive. The benefit extremely small. It just isn't worth doing.

Note: The 240v NEMA plugs I am referencing are not "dryer plugs" which are physically much* larger and designed for much higher amp loads in the 30-60 range. The 6-15/6-20 are literally identical to the standard 120v plugs but with different blade orientations. They were designed to support 240v appliances in everyday use since all of North America is dual voltage. In practice 240v is only ever used for large appliances like ovens so the 6 series doesn't get much use which is a bit of a shame.

[pezezin]

> The plugs also prevent mixing voltage and amperage. The typical two vertical blades (5-15) are for 15 amp circuits. 20 amp circuits (5-20) have one horizontal + one vertical blade. The receptacle has a T shaped slot to match - that way you can plug a low-amp device into a high-amp circuit but not the reverse.

Alternatively you can just run everything at 230V and then you don't need a million different plugs as any wall socket can provide up to 3.5 kW, enough for any home appliance except for the most power hungry ovens and IH stoves.

[cesarb]

> US style plugs and derivatives (and Australian, Japanese, Brazilian, etc)

Brazil no longer uses US style plugs (though you'll still find them in older installations), it nowadays uses a much safer EU-derived style.

> I find it insane that Brazil continues to be dual exclusive voltage; all of North America is dual concurrent voltage. Every home/office has 120v and 240v available. In Brazil it depends on what state/city you live in - some get 120v, some get 240v.

This is wrong; it's very common to have for instance both 127V and 220V in the same building, sometimes even side by side in the same wall faceplate; 127V is phase to neutral, 220V is phase to phase (on the common 3-phase system). Yes, it does depend on the city, some cities use 220V exclusively, and there are a few other variations, but AFAIK the 127V/220V 3-phase combo is the most common.

> Even worse they use the same standard plug design for both so you'd better hope the plug is the right color or has the right sticker. And you can't be sure you can take electrical appliances from one city to the next! At least they should have adopted different plugs for different voltages.

Yeah, at least it's better than the confusing mix of legacy sockets we had before (which already were mixed voltage - and yeah, we already used the "120V 5-15 NEMA plug" aka "computer plug" even for 220V).

[throwaway173738]

> Similarly the 240v version of this plug (6-15/6-20) has the same property: 15amp and 20amp versions. The 15 amp is two horizontal blades. The 20 amp is one horizontal + 1 vertical but swapped places compared to the 120v version. I do wish more builders installed the 240v receptacles in kitchens in the US. There is no technical reason we can't have higher power kettles and whatnot. If code required these in garages and kitchens more appliances would be available for them.

If we had more 240v circuits in garages and on the outside of the house you could use electric motors for more yard tasks. Batteries and gasoline is used often in the US because our branch circuits provide about half the power of a 240v branch circuit. You can buy electric mulchers that are powerful enough to grind tree limbs but they can’t run on a 120v circuits.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> The plugs also prevent mixing voltage and amperage.

There are Chinese suicide receptacles with T-slots on both sides allowing you to intermix all NEMA-5 and NEMA-6 variants.