Spotted at a shopping centre. Haven't seen this type before.

These sockets are for office partitions. They connect the power sockets on partitions to the wall. They are horrible things and not very durable.

A fly lead connects this source to the sockets on the partitions. If the partition is shifted by someone forgetting this system is in place, the pictured socket can be torn off the wall.

Thanks Brad.

The ones photographed are on tiled permanent columns in a food court, with GPOs above them, so I'm not sure why they exist there or how they could be be used as no partitions are in use there. Quite odd.

They could be to power small shopfronts like kiosks for gold exchanges (the mobs that try to buy $1,000 wedding rings for $50), insurance company branches, mobile phone accessory shops, or maybe concierge counters. If the supplies to those sockets are separately metered, the prospective users won't want other people plugging items into their power.

Belowis a link for what these sockets usually feed power to:-

https://www.2010officefurniture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/office-cubicles-global-eo.jpg

Thanks again. Were they in any other part of the centre than the food court, I'd understand. Hard to imagine any such use there. Will be interested to see what, if anything, gets plugged into them.

The short term kiosks, rides, etc, are typically powered at that centre from GPOs positioned in the floor, covered with brass screw on lids when not in use.

Yes Brad is correct. Most of the office workstations I encountered in my time in the Public Service used them. However the last lot I came across were fitted to free-standing display shelves used in the Woollies "Dick Smith" stores. (Power was fed by cables in conduits from the ceiling.) When the local store closed I bought some of their fittings to retrofit my garage and workshop. As Brad said they were quite flimsy and broke apart when I was reassembling the backing plates. Luckily I only wanted the shelves so I just removed the plugs and attached cables.

Now that I recall, all of the GPOs mounted on the partitions were daisychained with patch cords with one of those plugs at each end. If left alone they aren't bad but they are pretty much designed for quick set up so the office fitters don't need to hire electricians to be involved in fitouts. It doesn't save them that much money though as data cablers are still required to install the ethernet cables and sockets at each desk.

I've seen the jumpers used on cubicle partitions. They have a set of "male" pins, and "female" pins, and each connection is made using essentially 3 touching contact points. I've seen these fail from time to time. One place I worked decided to forget this, and had a sparky run conduit and install real outlets through the cubicle farm.

Usage mystery solved -- sort of.

I like how they oriented the USB mechs the wrong way, so people would be fumbling with the plugs on their phone cord and risk a breakage. I am assuming that the white disc on the table is a wireless charging point, perhaps connected to the socket in the original photo?

There are 3 or 4 discs on the bench. I'm not sure what's below them because (so far) pushing down on them has no effect.

I've seen them at Top Ryde shops, they are inductive. You just sit a compatible phone on top and it charges wirelessly.

Inductive chargers sounds likely.