Plugged in: Feller

Anyone in Switzerland who hears the name Feller AG is likely to instantly recognise the brand and know exactly what they do: for more than 111 years, the company headquartered in Horgen on Lake Zurich has been manufacturing switches and sockets, and since 1990 has also produced home and building automation solutions. In this alpine country, it is practically impossible not to have come across with one of the many Feller components.

The company owes its fame primarily to the founder’s daughter, Elisabeth Feller, who took over the business at the early age of 21 after the unexpected death of her father in 1931. Among other important contributions, she imbued the company with her design-savvy spirit. In 1946, Feller launched a rocker switch that soon created a sensation when the Swiss designer Max Bill included it in the Swiss Werkbund’s travelling exhibition Die Gute Form (The Good Form) from 1949, describing it as ‘perhaps the ultimate form for a light switch’.

Bill was not fully correct in his assertion, however, because the design of light switches has obviously evolved since then. The STANDARD version, which was reworked into a push switch in 1968, is no longer available, but its contemporary interpretation, STANDARDdue, is still going strong. How could he have ever imagined that one day, more things than just ceiling lights would be switched on and off?

Incidentally, the same also applies to sockets, whose uses have been expanded to include a variety of new functions. Feller has recently introduced the so-called USB charging socket, for which there are multiple configuration options. When maximum flexibility is required, in addition to the Swiss T13 slot, the charging socket has a USB-A and a USB-C connection, or alternatively two USB-C ports. If a higher charging capacity is required, the USB quick-charging socket provides an output of up to 18 W – optionally with a single USB-A or USB-C port or a double socket with USB-A and C ports or dual USB-C ports.

With these products, Feller is responding to the growing trend among manufacturers of mobile end devices to adopt the new uniform USB-C connection standard. This ensures that future generations of smartphones and tablets, too, can be easily and efficiently charged. The advantage of a universal installation of USB charging sockets is that users can leave their adapters at home – if such adapters are even still provided as a standard product accessory in the years to come.

Feller USB charging sockets can be used in diverse environments – from hotels, restaurants and offices to libraries, universities or schools. Anyone who needs a quick source of electricity at the airport or in other waiting areas is grateful to have a suitable USB port directly at their seat. USB charging sockets also prove to be an invaluable asset at home, such as when the tablet is being used in the kitchen to display baking instructions and needs to be charged next to the food processor. In fact, there is no setting in which the USB charging socket could not become the new standard – in the private as well as the public sector.

The USB charging sockets are available in the following design lines: EDIZIOdue colore – which come in twelve colours, from classic white to radiant lemon yellow – as well as EDIZIOdue prestige and STANDARDdue in black or white. In addition, there is a choice between different flush-mounted and surface-mounted versions.

Max Bill would be amazed today at how much has transpired in the field of switches and sockets over the past seventy-plus years. Perhaps one insight: ultimate design as he perceived does not really exist. After all, everything is influenced by the spirit of the times and by innovation – although the principle of timeless longevity undoubtedly remains the utmost goal. The USB charging sockets from Feller achieve both: being made for the mobile future and at the same time respecting their remarkable heritage, visually as well as technically.

© Architonic