When 200 chargers failed: A customer story about waste, design, and a smarter fix

I don’t usually get dramatic about USB chargers…

But today’s story has a bit of tragedy, a bit of horror, and a surprisingly happy ending.

One of our reps rang up an old client at UC Davis Health the other day.

Years ago, he’d sold them some competitor clamp-on charging units with USB, when he was working with another brand. (He didn’t know us then, we’ve forgiven him. )

And how was it going for UC Davis? “Not good. We had to throw away around 200 of those competitor units last year.”

Now, USB chargers do fail. Each has a finite number of insertions and when that number’s up, well, that’s life. Especially when they’re used by hundreds of heavy-handed college students on a daily basis.

So that wasn’t the horrible part…

But when the charging component stopped working, UC Davis had no choice but to toss and replace the WHOLE PRODUCT. Even though 90% of each unit still worked, the broken bit (the USB module) couldn’t be replaced.

It was like buying 200 whole new ovens just because the lightbulbs inside died.

Enter stage left: TUF-R® technology from OE.

With the TUF-R® component inside OE products, if a charging component fails, you don’t bin the whole unit. You simply pop out the old charging module and install a new one.

…For a fraction of the price and a fraction of the waste. 

If UC Davis had been using OE’s TUF-R® chargers, they would’ve saved thousands of dollars by replacing just the broken module instead of 200 whole units.

And better yet? All that metal and plastic wouldn’t now be clogging up a landfill somewhere.

Double win: Save the budget, save the planet.

This is exactly why we built TUF-R®…

Our founder Tim Hobbs hated that perfectly good materials were being thrown away just because one internal bit of tech died.

The tech inside is always going to expire before the body does, so why not design a system where you can update or replace only the bit that needs it?

So Tim did. 

And the replaceable TUF-R® component is compatible with our ENTIRE product range. So your TUF-R®-powered unit can look like this…

Or this…

Or this…

And as for that happy ending…

UC Davis Health is now the home of a few hundred Panda units, our bestselling clamp-on charger with USB.

Not only do they love them, but they love knowing they’re future-proof. If anything goes wrong — and let’s be honest, things do go wrong with thousands of students in the mix — it’s a quick fix for anyone to replace.

 ^^ watch us replace a TUF-R® component in under 2 minutes

This is the heart of what we do at OE:

• Smart design.
• Long-term thinking.
• Sustainability that isn’t just a buzzword, but a built-in feature.

I’m not saying OE’s chargers will change the world (although frankly, they might). But if you’re still buying USB charging units that have to be completely replaced every time a port dies…

…Well, you’re spending too much and chucking too much.

And that, my friend, is entirely avoidable.

So go on — give TUF-R® a closer look.

You might just have your own little lightbulb moment.