I have always been under the impression it was better to turn things off, rather than leave them on standby. To this end, as I need to save money at the moment, I bought a remote controlled socket to put the bits and pieces in the living room on. This cost £10.

Then I decided to work out what the actual standby draw of the items was:

Sonos 5 Gen 2 I am currently borrowing: 2w
Samsung 40″ telly: 0.3w
Virgin V6 box in eco mode: Guesstimating 10w

So for the loss of convenience, for example the V6 box allows you to remotely record programs when in standby, I gain about a pound or so in the first year. Obviously next year I get the real big bucks, but it got me wondering. With modern technology, despite some of it needing to be always on, is it worth turning stuff of anymore given the efficiency of the items, and if so is the common held wisdom, repeated by the likes of USwitch etc, applicable still?

Really makes you think.

Things like traditional PC’s will depend on how often you turn them on and off for the start up kick and the power saving when running on low/sleep.

Overall more efficient use is something that on a day to day level you won’t notice but saw the change from 100w Light bulbs to 14w ones will have a massive difference overall to the country. The small things all add up in the end.

Really makes you think.

If you turn everything off they can’t monitor you.

…assuming you’re wearing the hat.

Advice is based on a default assumption that everyone still has old equipment with inefficient standby. EU laws insist on very low power standby now. There are new rules too on Internet connected devices when in standby.

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-efficient-products/standby

Damn EU coming over here reducing our carbon footprint.

Yeah there have been a lot of improvements to standby mode in recent years (yay for effective EU regs).

It’s worth getting a Kill-A-Watt meter or similar to check whether it is really worth switching off individual appliances.

Still not a bad idea to do it in terms of reducing fire risk (and that annoying transformer whine) but I’m happy enough to leave quite a few low draw appliances on all the time including the TV and set top boxes.

I remember someone on here complaining that their router took ages to start every day and they had a really slow broadband connection – some things are just meant to be left on!

High tech kit is pretty good these days. The inefficient stuff is usually lurking elsewhere. Microwave and oven are two that can easily be turned off but are often left on.

I’d bet the remote socket uses more than the tv

Some of us have been on standby since June 23rd last year.

Marginal gains. 😉

Standby means standby

We turn pretty much everything off at night bar laptops (sleep mode), fridge, freezer and cable modem.

Our always on is down to about 70W.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/zmgscd]Neurio Always On[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Fridge and freezer are main offenders, you can see the pumps cycling on and off through the night…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/yDrsF1]Neurio Energy By Minute[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr