Power outlet wall solves your electrical needs

(Credit: Ironic Sans)

The Outlet Wall is a great idea. It actually looks good and is totally an exercise in function meeting fashion. If I ever get around to remodeling my place I do believe one wall will feature this setup.

It's just what it appears to be: an entire wall made of active power outlets. Imagine: no more power strips, tangled cables, or trying to make brick adapters fit where they don't want to.

Even if you don't wire all the outlets up, they still look cool. It's almost some sort of post-tech artistic statement.

Photographer David Friedman came up with this concept and posted it on his site, Ironic Sans, where he often details design and gadget ideas. Sadly, the wall does appear to be just a concept for now, but David, if you're reading this, I'd like to give you an Internet high-five.

[Mindstyle06]

What a great waste of resources..

[desertsurfergirl]

This looks like an electricians nightmare lol ! Not to mention that logistically it's dangerous, you would have to run a number of the sockets on many different circuits just to get it to work, cute but impractical.

NIghtmare for parents with small children too - that's a lot of outlet covers! And curious as to the long-term offect on electronics if all that energy is radiating so close to it...may not affect it - I'm not electrician.

What if only a few of them were legit and the rest were for show?

[NBaldwinUSAF]

that would be a good trick... " One of these outlets are real... try to figure out which one" haha

[spirixel]

Forget an electricians nightmare, this is a parents nightmare, one toddler and this wall equals bad news, the people who make those socket covers would clean up if this became a trend. I like the look though would be cool to maybe do this on your main entertainment wall and wire a couple of those up.

[sherbisness]

Total overkill, its ugly, wasteful, dangerous and unnecessary, one row would have been more than enough. Less is more.

[Eludium-Q36]

Agreed, Matt H must be "on something" to think a wall of all-white outlets looks cool. It's ridiculous from any perspective. Maybe if they were painted, or part of a mural, or color-coded - at least that would remove the visual shock. But this doesn't even make sense from a practical power-supply perspective, either -- it's just wrong.

[alegr]

No building inspector would sign off on this.

[Chiefman492]

I think its cool, why is everyone so negative. Stop being so serious and just enjoy the fact that it is an artists concept. Jeez.... relax everyone.

[kevsmail]

Funny concept, but all those plugs & cords hanging from above each appliance are pretty darn ugly.

[rpruett]

Maybe he could redo it with everyother one being a Cat5 wall plate. Then I could get all my computers in one room and cut down on the winter heating bill!

[mjn507]

Nooo. Go cat6 !

[Ryan_R]

I don't think the toddlers will be reaching the outlets higher than 1 meter anyway, so it's not THAT bad as some make out. But yeah, it does look ugly and is complete overkill.

[AmbientShadow]

There's no way that the whole wall could be active -- in Canada at least, you can only have 10 sockets per 15A circuit. Including labor and parts, the cost of this wall would be calculated out to be about $10-25k. Tack on the fact that you'd need to probably have a 200A panel put in to handle all the 15A breakers, the fact that there's simply no room for studs in that mess nor any place to actually run wire except inside the box, and you've got yourself a serious dilemma.

But it does look kind of cool. :)

Granted, even sparsely placing active plugs is a sound idea. But when resonant power transmission tech is mainstream, you'll just have a big copper coil behind your wall and your gadgets won't need wires whatsoever. I can't wait!

[rdelfin]

I like it.. a lot.

[Remo_Williams]

LiteBrite taken to its illogical inversion.