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My TV (and everything connected to it) is connected to a power strip which is connected to a HomeKit switchable outlet. When I'm not watching TV the entire power strip is simply turned off. Standby power: 0W
This may not sound bad, but it's the equivalent of 200 kWh per year and the set is only supposed to draw 0.5-1W from the specifications This would cost more than 50 EUR per year at current prices, and is sizeable compared to the average German citizens consumption of 1500 kWh electricity Let's just say this is not ideal given the current energy shortage in Europe...
25W * 8760h * 0,5€ = ~109€ per year.
The price hurts, yes, but the waste of power is _criminal_.
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Might be worth finding out whether you're wasting your time. As measured on a Kill-a-Watt, my 2013 LG TV consumes 0.0 watts when on standby.
If you do it right it's hardly a waste of time worth considering. My TV is plugged into an outlet that is controlled by a lightswitch, so I don't need to contort myself around furniture to reach to 'unplug' it. In other situations, I've used a power strip placed so the switch on the strip is easily accessible, sticking out from behind the cabinet. Even if the power draw on this TV is negligible, I think it's a habit…
Just for my understanding: What is the power consumption of a Apple TV in idle mode? and of a Raspberry Pi in idle mode?
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I also put everything except my fridge, freezer, and router on switchable extension cords. Why waste even a single watt-hour on things I don't use?
It feels like over optimization. The base load of my house is around 1kW which is still completely irrelevant in the scheme of how much owning the property costs. The literal cost you’re adding as well as the mental cost of having to switch things on and off all the time shouldn’t be ignored. There’s a timer on the outlets for the soldering gear though, that adds a bit of peace of mind.
For comparison, my external Nvidia shield (2019) consumes around 3W in standby and 8W max. https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_shield_android_...
I love my Shield.
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Are freezers really that bad? Does it depend if they're chest or standup? I don't remember my bill going up when I added a freezer, I didn't really measure though.
A chest is much better. The reason is intuitive: if you open it the cold air remains inside except for a little turbulence at the top and, of course, the new air that pours in to replace whatever you’ve just removed. Whereas, when you open an upright one, cold air immediately starts pouring out the bottom of the opening, with warmer air coming in at the top to replace it.
Chest freezers have better insulation and door seals, which is why they're more efficient.
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It also is illegal in the EU for new devices. https://ec.europa.eu/info/energy-climate-change-environment/... : “Network-connected standby devices Modern appliances are increasingly connected to the internet during standby mode, consuming higher amounts of energy. This includes networked televisions and decoders, printers, game consoles and modems. - Specific requirements for network-connected standby devices were in…
There were devices that consumed 80 watts in standby. I have a cabinet full of equipment including my cable modem, a computer (server, no monitor) with 8 mechanical hard drives. The idle current is 76 watts or so. How could something be so high?
Also, if we’re talking consumer tech from the 1970’s or 1980’s, I think it’s twofold.
Firstly, the market cared more about “time to wake up” than about power usage. People had fewer devices, they were (relatively) more expensive, and people were used to fully switching off stuff, so standby power usage wasn’t seen as a big issue.
Secondly, the tech itself didn’t exist. Nowadays, your power supply has a CPU that knows how much power your hardware needs and can optimize for it. Then, you would be lucky if your hardware had a switching power supply.
CPUs didn’t have power states. If you were lucky, you could halt them and have them start again on interrupt. Hibernation didn’t exist, so in computers you’d have to power RAM, anyways. And because of that, OSes didn’t bother with the complex task of properly powering down peripherals when going on standby.
My Chromecast connected to my TV is also powered by a USB port on the TV. It seems to turn off when the TV is in standby, I have to wait for it to initialize when I turn my TV on. This detail could have been easily lost over the years.
I do agree with people who say the Chromecast was best when it first came out. It did one thing well (albeit in an indirect way). Like all hardware, it has been slowly adding more and more features that will require it to draw more power, connect to the internet more, track more usage, integrate with more Google services, etc.