Comments by "Laurence Fraser" (@laurencefraser) on "The US electrical system is not 120V" video.

  1. ... it is though? That's kind of like asking claiming that dollars aren't decimal on the basis that a shop sells stuff for twelve or sixteen dollars each rather than ten or twenty.
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  2. Some of our devices do, in fact, not have an actual off switch here in New Zealand. It's Really Annoying, because sometimes those same devices are also designed on the assumption that you'll never Want to turn them off, so do stupid things like revert to factory default settings when you do. (These are usually things made primarily for other markets, admittedly. Not always though) Most have actual switches on the device as well though. Broadly speaking, the wall switch on the power plugs (in most cases identical to the light switches, as I understand it) provide a whole bunch of minor improvements to safety (mostly not Electrical safety (though a little of that too) as such so much as safety from fire, tripping hazards, and 'i just stepped on a spikey thing!', especially for children, the elderly, etc.), convenience (particularly when mucking around with proper extension cords. No, not multi-boxes.), And reducing wear and tear (many less instances of plugging and unplugging, plus the rapid disconnect the same as in light switches). Of course, our plugs aren't a Lot better than american ones. The plug housing Always flairs out to completely cover all three sockets even on two pin plugs and keep your hand away from the pins (well, some old ones didn't. They do now though!) the bit you grab to unplug it is a bit more solid (admittedly, it's often some sort of transformer/converter brick thing...) and the pins are Never long enough to stick out of the socket when plugged in properly, but that's pretty much it. Standard safety measure is inserting plastic dummy-plugs (that are roughly equivalent to childproof lids on medicine bottles) into unused sockets, but no one bothers with that if there aren't small children in the house (not least because they have a Really Annoying (though perfectly safe and easy to fix) failure state where the mechanism to get them out breaks off...)
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