Bauhn USB Wall Plate

If you’re anything like us, you never have enough plugs.

There was a time, maybe a century ago, when modern society was simple enough that two plugs in a wall outlet was just enough. You could plug in a lamp, and maybe a radio, in your living area, and you were set.

But then other technology emerged. Televisions. VHS (or DVD, or Blu-ray) players. Video game systems. Stereo receivers. Smartphone chargers. In modern times, the demands on a wall socket are greater than ever, making it virtually impossible to survive on just two plugs.

Technology has created the problem, but technology has also offered a solution, thanks to an array of extension cords, power strips, multi-chargers, and other power-splitting accessories.

My family uses power strips most often, given our situation. However, in a couple of places we use a wall extender or wall plate. Most of these work by simply plugging over the existing socket, transforming them from two plugs to, say, six plugs or a combination of plugs and USB ports.

Recently, we found ourselves in the all-too-common situation where we realized we needed more than two outlets in part of our house. Because of what we were plugging in, a wall extender made more sense than a power strip.

By pure chance, Aldi happened to be selling just such an item this week.

The Bauhn USB Wall Plate (Product Code: 837442) is an Aldi Find. It’s only in stores for a short time, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. If you can’t find one in stores, you’re out of luck, as Aldi doesn’t ship products online.

At the time of this post, Aldi sold the wall plate as part of a mixed case that also included a charging station. Both the wall plate and the charging station cost $12.99 at the time of publication. The wall chargers I found on Amazon currently run in the $10-$20 range, so while the Aldi model isn’t the cheapest, it’s mostly competitive on price, especially for the features.

Here are some of those features, according to Aldi:

6 Outlet Surge Protector with 4 USB ports
Charges 10 devices at the same time
Indicator lights show when devices are charging and fully charged
LED charging indicators
490 Joules of surge protection with indicator light
4 USB outlets: 3 x USB A 1 x USB C
6 Electrical outlets

There is no listed warranty or after-sales support. According to the package, it is made in China.

As we do with all products we review, we purchased this one ourselves to try it out. We also spent some time with it in a live setting to get a feel for how it works.

After cutting it out of the packaging, the first thing I noticed is not the front, but the back. With older wall extenders that we’ve bought, they usually have two separate plugs for putting in both sockets — this one, instead, has a plug at the top and a post on the bottom. A quick look on Amazon listings indicates that this is a common configuration nowadays.

The one downside I noticed is that the post configuration doesn’t hold the plug in as tight as the older two-plug arrangement. When I have to pull a plug out of the front, for instance, I have to hold the plate attached with my other hand to keep the plate plugged into the wall socket. Again, though, this seems to be the norm with modern extenders like this one.

On the positive side, it’s got a good assortment of USB plugs and standard grounded outlets for various devices. It’s nice being able to mix and match various plugs. Phones are the obvious candidate for the USB plugs, but I was also able to plug in a couple of other devices that operate via USB. And the sockets work as advertised.

I did encounter a limitation specifically regarding the USB ports. The package advertises 4.2 Amps for “ultra-fast charging,” but I was unable to get any of our devices to fast charge. Your mileage may vary.

The Verdict:

The Bauhn USB Wall Plate is a decent, if unspectacular, choice for augmenting a wall socket. The price is competitive (although not the cheapest out there) and most of the functions work as described. I couldn’t get my phones to fast charge over USB despite that being an advertised feature, but other than that it seems to do the job.

I’ll revisit this one, as necessary, to update how it works over time.