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Comment by kwyjibo12345 | Hacker News Reader

I'm less shocked by Alexa suggesting this than by the poor socket design in some parts of the world allowing to short-circuit the plugs while they are inserted.

This is as proper design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko

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Not a great design, as shown by the

"Schuko plug partially inserted in CEE 7/1 non-earthed socket, pins are in contact but exposed. There is no connection for the earthing contact"

The complete mix of sockets across the EU is awful for a single market. OK not as bad as the US, but still terrible.

BS 1363 was incompatible with the previous standard when introduced, so you didn't get that mess. Since 1972 BS plugs have required pin insulation to prevent the exposed pin problems. You also can't jab a thin metal thing in the socket as there's an internal cover protecting the holes which is only released when an earth pin is inserted

Of course Amazon does its best to reduce safety by selling fake shit.

> "Schuko plug partially inserted in CEE 7/1 non-earthed socket, pins are in contact but exposed. There is no connection for the earthing contact"

That’s a plug from one country (Germany/France) inserted in sockets from another country (Netherlands/Denmark). That’s not a supported configuration, and if you do it like that, you’ll always be able to cause trouble.

German sockets are significantly more recessed, so the pins are never exposed.

That's the point, the plugs and sockets are sort-of compatible. With a single market and freedom of movement this type of misuse is quite common and dangerous.

You struggle to plug any type of shuko/europlug/US/Austrailian plug into a socket in Malta or Cyprus, and vice versa.

Things shouldn't be safe when used right, they should be safe and not work at all the vast majority of times when used wrong.

To be fair, the exposed pin problem is specifically a North American one - no EU product features all-metal pins. Only the the very tip is metal and half-inserted plugs cannot expose metal parts (you only have plastic exposed in that case).

The pictures on the wikipedia page would tend to differ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko#/media/File:Schuko_plug...

Entirely metal pins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko#/media/File:Schuko_plug...

Entirely metal pins in a semi-recessed socket that's common enough in Europe

Europlugs are insulated, but have other problems.

The largest problem in my view in Europe is the sheer number of standards that are partially compatible with each other with differing results.

These rubber connectors cannot be halt inserted while still making contact - that would only work with EU plugs, which have partially insulated pins for this exact reason.

If you try and half insert the other type of plug, you'd be met with a thick plastic body, but not exposed pins.

There is literally a photo of a shuko plug half inserted into a relatively common European socket and a claim that the pin is in contact with the terminal.

Shuko are not as safe as they should be because they are easily misused.

The Schuko plug referenced above is a plug used in some EU countries. The pins are all-metal and shows a picture of an example where the half-inserted pins are exposed and does not have a ground connected.

So yes, some EU products feature all-metal pins. And yes, on those plugs half-inserted plugs do expose metal parts.

> So yes, some EU products feature all-metal pins. And yes, on those plugs half-inserted plugs do expose metal parts.

Ever tried to half insert such plug? You'd be met with a thick plastic since these plugs cannot be half inserted while exposing the pins (hence the full metal pins).

Ever look at a link included in a comment chain?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko#/media/File:Schuko_plug...

That's not a Schoku socket!

Plugging the wrong type of plug into the wrong type of socket will lead to that.

That's a nice strawman, since the plug and the socket belong to different systems.

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