In my final year at university and I am spitballing a few ideas around with my fellow students. one of which is bus-powered devices and how to minimise clutter of cables at home.
Example. In my room I have a TV with a separate DVD player, separate sound bar and a small android XBMC box. All of which have power cords plugging in to the wall as well as a cable going into the TV itself.
My question is, with the devices getting smaller and running at lower voltages every year, could one cable, for example a USB Type-C power delivery cable which can provide power and data links be used to connect these devices to the TV.
So TV connected to wall, then 3 individual cables from devices to the TV.
Yes some products might not be capable for this technology yet but would this even be possible ?

 

I have a power buss system for all my stuff ran through my whole house now. Its awsome! I have a bunch of simple power socket points I can plug most anything into now.

Simple two and three prong sockets all running on a standard 120 VAC voltage buss capable of up to 2400 watts peak per circuit and with what isn't directly compatible with the 120 VAC Buss voltage I have little adapter units to change that into whatever other voltage and current type I do need.

My point is, how is three cables going to one device that goes to the wall any different than just having 4 cables going to a outlet strip that goes to the wall?

 

I think you're potentially on to something if you combine power and data on a single bus for the entire house. That eliminates the headaches of WiFi (security, range, limited speed, etc..) and makes every device in the house a 1-plug device.

The solution would be to integrate something like this into every device:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWRUICG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Now you plug the device into the wall for power, and you also get ethernet connectivity automatically. I use these in my house, they aren't perfect and there are limitations, but they do work reasonably well. If you had a system designed for this from the start then you could eliminate the limitations.

 

DeviceNet from Allen-Bradley(Rockwell) did it for the factory floor 2 decades ago. No reason it could not be adapted for the home -- er dormitory.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. This project has to show our own initiative in the design and have the full year to design and pick apart the whole process. I have been looking at alot of information about USB type C connections, power line adapters in home and also bus powering devices. I'm basically trying to combine all these ideas into one plug socket. However it's pretty adventurous as I have very limited knowledge and resources available. Any ideas or tips for this would be great

 

The problem with combining everything into one plug and socket set is that said combination becomes a proprietary application design that is largely not going to be adopted into replacing existing designs that have been in use for decades let alone will be willingly adapted and installed onto the majority of electrically powered devices that have zero digital data communication function or need.

My electric power tools being a good example. All they need are the standard two and three prong common electrical plugs on them that fit any standard electrical outlet. They have zero need for a fancy multi function power and data handling plug system.

My point is your system for the most part has to be able to work over existing components and electrical wiring already in place which is where every other system design so far runs into physical limitations. Standard two and three wire household wiring is designed to carry electrical power not data and there is a limit to how well it can do the second which is why dedicated wiring like ethernet cabling and fiber optics and their related plug and sockets are ran as separate systems.

That and most people could care less about having an extra few wires and cables behind their entertainment system and for those who do there are medication that greatly reduce that concern.

If it was my project I would be looking at how to incorporate either ethernet linking or fiber optic linking in a daisy chainable interconnect system where every device has two or more ports for said data line any you just plug one unit into another and go.

Given Cat 5 and 6 rated ethernet cabling over short distance can run gigabit plus data transfer rates it's unlikely there could be bandwidth issues and if so then fiberoptic with multi gigabit plus capacity would be the next logical interconnect method.

So theres your problem to solve. How to make modern high capacity data transfer work between multiple units on a single daisy chain data line set without any external routers or hubs.