Comment by Symbiote
15 hours ago
I agree (Except British plugs which are also fine if made properly¹).
Denmark made installing CEE (the French version) sockets legal in 2011, but the only place I've seen one is a friend's house — he's German and swapped the sockets when he bought it.
¹ Hong Kong also uses British plugs, and this seems to have led some Chinese manufacturers to make non-compliant, unsafe plugs which fit — and nowadays with Amazon, AliExpress etc selling any old rubbish they are sometimes seen in Britain.
I am mainland european, but I like better the UK plugs having a fuse and being non pluggable on unearthed sockets: it is common to plug type G appliances to type C sockets. If only they had the safety depth of the CEE instead of being at surface...
The socket holes are protected so you can’t jam thing in like European ones, and the metal isn’t exposed as the live and neutral are sheathed if the plug is half connected.
Setting aside the fuse the socket is safer than prevented European ones (which aren’t the only European sockets going)
The socket in CEE also protect the plug from being hit laterally and damaging either the socket or the plug. In Spain, before the adoption of CEE 7/3 we had europlugs without plug pocket, and I remember half the sockets of the house wiggling on the casing due to lateral hits, and plugs coming out of the socket easily. With CEE 7/3 you have to pull, they feel really sturdy, specially compared with NEMA. I don't have much experience with UK sockets, but I bet they are not as secured (not electrically but as in this-plug-isnt-going-anywhere) as the CEE 7/3.
Not a fan of the protection through a sleeve, as it encourages meddling with the socket with a screwer to use unearthed plugs.
That said, I would like Shukos with fuses, and Shuko plugs unable to plug in unearthed sockets.