Identify Outlet

Any of you old electricians want to take a crack at identifying this bad boy?

Just a guess but an dimmable night light. Turn the knob to dim.

Nite Lite - pre-LED days

Thanks guys. My guess was night light or timer. Not my inspection. Apparently the agent was told it was a “vent, in case the outlet gets hot”.

Wow, that’s a new brand of stupid. :roll:

Wuh???

That does appear to be a “vent” its there to allow air circulation to an early dimmer coil which does produce quite a bit of heat. The energy not being delivered to the lighting is expended as heat energy.

The vents let the light leak out.

From a physics standpoint that makes sense, but just seems weird by modern standards. Being in my late 30’s, I’ve never seen anything like that. Ditto for most of the sparkys I know of any age. Figured someone on here would know.