Yes, they can be eliminated!

Why would you design an office that is going to be cluttered with cables if you knew it could be done another way?

How can a facility be clean when there is a tangle of power cords under almost every desk?

If you look under your desk, do you believe the cleaning crew carefully lifted your cords so they could vacuum, sweep, or mop the floor under your desk?

Chronic Cord Tangle

The problem of cord tangle has challenged us since the introduction of the personal computer almost 40 years ago. Perhaps we tolerate it, thinking the other choice is to have fewer pieces of office equipment. Perhaps we choose not to notice or we don’t care.

Have we simply become acclimated to a bad practice?

Like the proverbial frog in hot water, over time we have added more and more powered devices to our work area. Not that long ago, panel systems were the prevailing way to furnish an office. Having two duplex outlets near each end of a panel was considered sufficient. If you still occupy this kind of office, I expect there are cords going in every direction, or a power strip as shown in the picture.

Either way, the cord jungle is unsightly, unclean, and unsafe.

Whether a panel system or a desking system, electrical codes for 120V power limit the number of outlets that can connect to a single circuit. Most office furniture systems designers specified three-circuit AC systems, so as to reduce the number of “power drops” from the building.

It would be possible to add more duplex outlets (or four-plex) as an engineering solution. However, this approach would necessitate increasing the number of power drops as electrical codes limit the number of outlets on a circuit.

I can imagine the sequence of events that happens in practice. An organization secures a permit to change its electrical connections to accommodate a new layout. An electrical inspector reviews the plans and approves the installation. If all aspects conform to the electrical code, occupancy is approved.

Next, users begin to occupy their workstations and discover they need more 120V outlets. The solution; an extension cord or multi-outlet power strip. My instincts suggest that most electrical inspectors choose to look the other way if they happen to see this situation. Cord tangle is so pervasive that if they began to cite these situations, they would have to cite almost everyone.

An important criterion in our development of Respond! was to address cord tangle directly and, eliminate it.

Eliminating Cord Tangle

What did we do?

Battery power was the first step. There can be no extension cords or power strips on the floor if there is no 120V wiring extending to every workstation. DC power supplied by a battery through a USB-C connection eliminates the need for 120V wiring.

To provide a solution for monitors, we aligned ourselves with products from LG and Samsung. These manufacturers make several types of monitors that consume low amounts of energy. Importantly, they also power their monitors with external sources of DC power that we could replicate.

Monitors, not computers, are the biggest consumers of power on your desktop.

We also adopted a policy that we would sell our power solutions to third-party providers for such things as custom conference tables and reception workstations. We want our customers to be able to standardize on a single solution to power all equipment.

We designed a 24-place charging system so there are plenty of batteries or charging positions available near everyone’s work area. And we added simple hooks to many products so power can be available anywhere, even in casual work areas or outdoors. We think a facility that specifies our Respond! product line can be cord-tangle-free and enable management to outlaw all extension cords.

We don’t want to eliminate some of your cord tangles. We want to eliminate all of them.

Did we miss anything?