Engineering Jargon and Terms
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Wall Wart. A self contained AC to DC power adapter, or power supply which plugs into an AC outlet and contains the power supply within the plug. A Wall Wart or Wall Adapter is used with a device that does not contain a power supply. A wall wart is the simplest of power supplies, with a transformer to down-convert the AC voltage, maybe a Bridge Rectifier to convert AC to DC and some small amount of filtering capacitor.
European Wall Wart
A wall-wart will either plug into an outlet vertically or horizontally depending on the location of the AC prongs.
The only problem with wall warts are that they are always drawing power even when they are not connected to a component. The transformer is always drawing current.
Note: The IEEE has established a working group [P1823] to address or develop a standard smart DC power supply which in the end would replace an individual wall wart that is required by every device that requires DC power. It appears [at this early stage] that the AC to DC power supply would supply between 10 and 130 watts per output, and have some number of DC outputs. The assumption would be that the 130 watts might be the maximum for the entire unit, one output at 100 watts or some number of outputs using less current [that would be a guess].
The release of the standard could be years away, followed by even more time for OEMs to comply with the DC requirements. As many wall warts have different sizes of power jacks. The smart DC power supply seems to be aimed at the computer market, with outputs geared to a laptop, monitor, printer, screen projector, perhaps speakers and so no [at least from the graphic I've seen]. It wouldn't make sense to purchase a smart DC power supply just to recharge a phone, as the wall wart would be cheaper, but a computer system would be different.
