Residential buildings have wall outlets for powering electronic devices such as lights, appliances, computers, and mobile devices. Such wall outlets typically provide alternating current (AC) to AC powered devices as well as to devices which first convert/transform the AC power to direct current (DC) or some other AC voltage/frequency via an external internal transformer. Such devices have a power cord with a plug configured to be connected to and removed from the wall outlet.
Due to the proliferation of various consumer electronic devices that are powered by batteries providing direct current (DC), such as cell phones, laptops, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDA's), and the like, there is a need to power and/or charge such devices. Most of these devices are powered by low voltage DC. Recharging these devices may be facilitated through the use of standard interfaces such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) charging device. Some of these charging devices have been incorporated into wall outlets. Such charging devices may be designed to provide power to multiple electronic devices simultaneously.
For cases in which multiple device are coupled to a single USB charging device, the charging current requested by each of the electronic devices may exceed an output charging current capacity of the charging device. Some conventional USB charging device address this by limiting current flow to a channel that supplies the charging current to the USB port that the electronic device(s) is/are attached. Limiting charging current in this manner, however, can lead to overheating of the USB charging device, which, in turn, can lead to channel shut down and/or the USB charging device not functioning as intended.