I’ve done a ton of electrical and media work in the past couple months (at the cost of not spending as much time on Intellihome – sorry guys for the delay in those new features). I’ll be writing about these projects in the coming weeks and months, but wanted to start with something that makes me think “genius!” every time I use it.
I actually spent some time looking for this little innovation online using Google’s Patent Search, and didn’t find anything that exactly matches it, but then again, “electrical face plate” returns 900,000+ hits. The innovation? The little paper tabs on these wall plate screws:
They’re so simple, but incredibly useful. By spinning freely with the screws themselves, but staying attached with a little bit of friction, they allow the screws to stay in the holes while you’re mounting them to a vertical surface. And when you unscrew them, the screws come out of the threaded hole but stay attached to the wall plate so you don’t have to catch them on the way out – or rely on the magnetic tip of awesome screwdrivers like this.
