An adapter or adaptor is a device that converts attributes of one electrical device or system to those of an otherwise incompatible device or system. Some modify

power Power may refer to: Common meanings * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power, a type of energy * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events Math ...

signal A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

attributes, while others merely adapt the physical form of one connector to another.

Travel adapters

Many countries with ties to Europe use 230-volt, 50 Hz AC

mains electricity Mains electricity, utility power, grid power, domestic power, wall power, household current, or, in some parts of Canada, hydro, is a general-purpose Alternating current, alternating-current (AC) electric power supply. It is the form of electri ...

, using a variety of power plugs and sockets. Difficulty arises when moving an electrical device between countries that use different sockets. A

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of ...

electric power adapter, sometimes called a ''travel plug'' or ''travel adapter'', allows using a plug from one region with a foreign socket. As other countries supply 120-volt, 60 Hz AC, using a travel adapter in a country with a different supply poses a safety hazard if the connected device does not support both input voltages.

AC-to-DC adapters

An AC-to-DC

power supply A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, electric current, current, and frequency to power ...

adapts electricity from household mains voltage (either 120 or 230 volts AC) to low-voltage DC suitable for powering

consumer electronics Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, Communication, communications, and recreation. Historically, these prod ...

. Small, detached power supplies for consumer electronics are called ''

AC adapter An AC adapter or AC/DC adapter (also called a wall charger, power adapter, power brick, or wall wart) is a type of external power supply, often enclosed in a case similar to an AC plug. AC adapters deliver electric power to devices that la ...

s'', or variously ''power bricks'', ''wall warts'', or ''chargers''.

Computer adapters

A ''host controller'' connects a computer to a peripheral device, such as a storage device, network, or human interface device. As a host controller can also be viewed as bridging the protocols used on the

buses A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

between peripheral and computer, and internally to the computer, it is also called a ''host bus adapter''. Likewise, specific types may be called adapters: a network interface controller may be called a ''

network adapter A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter and physical network interface) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Early network interface ...

'', and a graphics card a ''

display adapter A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

''. Adapters (often in the form of ''

dongle A dongle is a small piece of computer hardware that connects to a port on another device to provide it with additional functionality, or enable a pass-through to such a device that adds functionality. In computing, the term was initially synony ...

s'') allow connecting a peripheral device with one plug to a different jack on the computer. They are often used to connect modern devices to a

legacy port In computing, a legacy port is a computer port or connector that is considered by some to be fully or partially superseded. The replacement ports usually provide most of the functionality of the legacy ports with higher speeds, more compact des ...

on an old system, or old devices to a modern port. Such adapters may be entirely

, or contain active circuitry. A common type is a USB adapter. One kind of

serial port A serial port is a serial communication Interface (computing), interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in Pa ...

adapter enables connections between 25-contact and nine-contact connectors, but does not affect electrical power- and signalling-related attributes.

Software adapters

In software, an adapter is a piece of code that complies with an interface of an existing component while actually using another implementation.

References

{{Reflist Electrical components

Travel adapters

AC-to-DC adapters

Computer adapters

Software adapters

See also

References