Saw a guy in Rome using a water bottle as a makeshift travel adapter - genius or dumb?

I was at a hostel in Rome last week and this dude literally cut the top off a plastic water bottle, stuffed his European plug inside, and jammed it into a US outlet to power his phone, has anyone else seen weird outlet hacks like that work without blowing something up?

2 comments

2 Comments

rivera.keith1mo agoMost Upvoted

That hack will probably fry your phone the second you plug it in.

gonzalez.vera1mo ago

Wait, is it really that big of a deal? I mean, people shove random metal things into outlets all the time and I've never seen a fire start (though I guess that's not saying much). A plastic bottle is at least non-conductive, so technically it might be safer than a paperclip or something silly like that. But come on, the real problem is the voltage difference, not the shape of the plug. A US outlet is 120V and Europe is 220V, so even if the bottle doesn't melt, the charger could still decide to smoke out your phone. It's kind of a temporary fix for someone who forgot their real adapter, but I wouldn't call it "genius" - more like "desperate and probably lucky nothing happened.