Power gadget set to cut electricity bills A company based in the UK has launched an innovative way to quickly and easily turn off all that household electronic equipment more often than not left on power-consuming 'standby' mode: a radio-controlled power plug. Ivy Energy Saving's Standby Buster Ivy's Standby Buster: power cutter Dubbed the Standby Buster, it's a …
No one ever heard of a switch??? they're often standard features on todays modern Bakelite electircal aparatus...
money for old rope.. what a waste of time. now there was another gadget i saw which monitored the power consumption on a master socket and turned it's slave sockets off automatically when it dropped, much better, but still... just get up and walk the 5 steps to the wall!!!
I've got a far cheaper solution - it's this funny little thing on the wall socket called the 'off switch'. For those sockets in my house which don't have one of these, I use a technique called 'pulling the plug' - quick, simple and cheap (granted, the socket for my PS2/hifi combo is difficult to reach, but not insurmountably so)
Oh yeah, my method also means that I don't have yet another remote control unit to lose behind the sofa ;-)
Why would I want a remote control? One Click seems far superior! I turn off my {TV, computer, ...} and it turns off everything else connected to the same plug {monitor(s), printer, ....., DVD player, digi box, video player, ....}
I am in no way affiliated with One Click.
One Click: http://www.oneclickpower.co.uk/
How is this news? These things (from other manufacturers) have been available for quite some time - just off the top of my head I know that B&Q and Maplins sell them (the ones I bought are from a brand called Byron), and a whole bunch of other places if you do a quick Google search.
What next - a Reg story on a wonderful new version of the telephone that - wait for it - has NO WIRES! This novel new way of communicating will also be available from Argos, no doubt.
For those who don't want to wait for Argos to catch up, or want something with a slightly less tacky remote, head off to
http://www.chbyron.eu/products.php?catid1=3&catid2=14
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=42504&source=2001&doy=search
or
http://www.ryness.co.uk/ProductDetails.aspx?categoryID=754&ProductID=3804
...or just wander in to B&Q.
I just hope the amount of beer this firm supplied El Reg to hock their wares was worth it!
So let me get this right, this newfangled contraption switches stuff off but keeps itself on standby. And on standby it uses 1W. So it's still not as good as switching everything off at the wall or via an inline switch. It also uses batteries for the remote and is YET ANOTHER REMOTE CONTROL to clutter up my living room.
The manufacturers are selling this as green but it's just another way of leaving stuff switched on 24x7.
Any while I'm ranting I'd also like to point out that my TV and DVD player, when on standby, use 0.3 watts total (according to a fine digital usage meter I bought from maplin). So if I use this remote standby contraption it will increase my "standby" power usage by over 200% ; great! :(
I bought a remote controlled socket adaptor at Maplin over 2 years ago. They also do the packs of 4 and IIRC they're cheaper.
I even bought a 3 pack of these things from a garden centre last Christmas where they were being sold as the easy way to turn on/off tree lights when the plug was hidden behind the tree. Luckily for me the two remotes I now have were compatible and can be configured to work with the sockets from the other set using dip switches.
I will admit, these ones look nicer though........
Have we really became a lifeform that cannot cope without a bollocksing remote control?
To all those thinking of buying one.
Stop being so B*stard lazy.
Stand up, Walk to said plug socket, switch it off.
Heavens forbid you may have to bend down or move furniture.
Christ.
Whew! that was hard. I realise that's a (relatively) UK only thing to have wall sockets with switches, but you can buy extension leads that have rocker switches in most other countries.
In some respects it makes things easy, but it's going a little over the top. As soon as I heard using a remote to turn items off at the socket, I was really trying to wonder how lazy people have become. Besides in most houseeholds, 3-4 remotes are not uncommon...
Why not develop sockets where you can set a run level. Fridges and freezers would have a low run level, and TVs would have a high run level.
When you go out, you change the run level for the house accordingly - just like UNIX :o) Your TV is powered off completely, but the freezer remains on...
Figures like this are made up by taking the worst performing gadget on the market and multiplying by 60 million.
Back in the 1980s there were, briefly, televisions that had a stand-by mode which kept the tubes hot (so that you got a picture within seconds of switching on). This consumed almost as much power as having the set on. It also led to the urban myth that any gadget on stand-by uses as much power as it does when it is on. Well, that hasn't been true for twenty years and a TV from a competent manufacturer needn't draw more than a watt in stand-by mode.
Yes, there's room for improvement, but we'll only get that improvement when folks start diggin around for the true numbers. A switch-your-brain-off-and-believe-this marketing campaign from someone selling an "off switch" is a step in the wrong direction.
Lastly, if you are dumb enough to buy this product, you will soon discover that your video no longer records programs whilst you are out because, er, it is switched off.
Start-up times are vastly reduced coming out of standby as opposed to a hard boot. Not to mention that some of these devices lose configured settings if they are disconnected from the mains.
I can't wait to see how angry someone gets that has to reset the date on their Xbox or 360 every time they use one of these retarded tools and can't figure out why.
Interesting. Take an old product that's been on the market for years, paint it green, and sell it as the latest environmentally friendly gadget, even though it draws power itself, and of course requires disposable batteries for the handset.
The whole standby argument is nonsense anyway. Most British houses have central heating, and anyone who is environmentally conscious will have it on a thermostat. Those few watts that leak out from equipment on standby will end up warming the room and will be compensated for by the fact that the thermostat will shut off the central heating a few minutes earlier. If your room stays at the same temperature, then obviously the net input of energy is the same, whether from standby electrical items (which might come from renewable sources) or central heating (likely to be non-renewable gas).
Maybe if the UK had a climate where airconditioning was the norm there might be some reason for this, but otherwise it's just more ill-informed scaremongering from people that either don't know what they're talking about themselves, or who want to make money out of the gullible.
They sold variants these about 5 years ago in Lidl. Got four sockets gathering dust in my garage now as I prefer letting my computers sleep for a quick wakeup and my settop box updates overnight.
What people forget in the whole let's not waste energy debate is that the nuclear power stations don't turn off at night - they provide base demand so someone somewhere has to use the energy. Hence the prevalence of night-time rates for leccy.
The device shown at the end of the last series of dragons den (the Standby Saver) contained a rechargeable battery and learned the 'off' signal from your remote.
therefore it has 2 distinct advantages over this product.
1 - when in standby, the device uses NO electricity
2 - no extra remote to loose
Well in the case of my computer the plug is near inaccessible unless i move the bloody heavy desk that its on.
In the case of my A/V system wall socket it's behind my A/V system and likewise inaccessible without rolling out the A/V table out of the alcove that it barely fits in and rolling it back in every time I wanted to switch and then spend a few minutes reconnecting the cables that have been yanked out!
It isn't much use for my PC as there are times when I want to leave it running but not waste electricity on the monitor and speakers while I'm not requiring them
Also it isn't much use for my a/v system as there's no one main device to choose from. I can't pick the TV as I listen to music through the a/v amplifier from my xbox 360 or sky hd box or sacd/dvd-a capable dvd player and I can't pick the a/v amplifier as I don't necessarily have it on to watch the TV.
I'm not by any means an electrical guru, but there are those here that are, so I'll ask the question: I know that during turn on/off the likelyhood of failure is greater... is this true of on/off from standby? I've often wondered if the environmental impact of producing replacement devices for devices broken during on/off was greater than the cost of just keeping things running...
Anyone know the answer to this one?
I've used the ones B&Q have sold for 6 years, tried the Maplin ones and a couple of others. They ALL, without exception fail on an inductive load of 2A (0.85 PF - anything lower than 0.8 causes the contacts to weld shut instantly) which is quite obviously less than the 3A inductive they are supposedly rated for. What's interesting is that they all have the same failure mode - the faulty unit will initially appear to have a control fault as it will turn on and off regardless of which "channel" button is pressed. A day or so later the contacts will weld shut. Totally repeatable across all the "different" models various places sell - despite the units claiming to be made by different companies. They're fine on resistive/PFC loads and are actually a very good idea for turning off TV/hifi kit where the socket is invariably out of reach at the back.
Thinking you're helping the energy crisis or the environment by unplugging your TV when you're out is like thinking you're going to stop a war by running across a battlefield holding a peace sign.
If you want to help the world instead of giving yourselves masturbatory, holier-than-though pleasure rubs via pointless self-sacrifice, encourage investment in materials science research that can help the development of breeder reactors and deep-drilled geothermal power.
In the meantime, I'll be using a 500 watt overhead projector as a wall clock just to piss you all off and negate the 'impact' of one or two thousand of you bloody mindless sheep.
I echo the thoughts above about the little heat from standby units offsetting the central heating. Also, electronic equipment likes being left on, so the 'standby police' are ensuring that it wears out more quickly through repeated power cycling, which is a lot less environmentally friendly than consuming a few extra watt-hours.
About time the Law of Unintended Consequences was on the National Curriculum...
X-10 whole-house remote control gear has been about for many years, with either similar plug-in switch modules or wire-in devices for neat installation.
There are also newer, faster standards like UPB and Z-Wave
With any of these you can have automated or timed controls as well as manual remote operation.
As others have said, why do people keep re-inventing the wheel...
Assuming that Global Warming is a major problem that needs to be addressed, let's get real and stop farting around with a watt here and a watt there. It is nothing but window dressing. It is the same as a kid with a $1k car with a six-inch diameter tail pipe - a 'False Finishing Touch'.
"Look at me. I've done everything that I possibly can and now there's nothing left for me to do except address the trivial-by-any-standard standby losses on my home theatre kit."
What's the footprint for manufacturing and shipping this useless crap?
I agree with the comment here - I'd just like to add, that devices could cut stand-by power to a total minimum if the standby circuitry was powered by a small battery, inside the device, that was kept charged by the unit when powered on. That would mean that the transformer could be powered off whilst in standby mode.
Of course, there are a few details to work out, like, allowing a cold start if the battery happens to be dead etc. but these are easily doable.
What would a rechargeable 9v battery use to power a tiny circuit and a led ? I'm sure we're talking microwatts!
What happened to that fridge energy saving device.
When you open the door the thermostat detects the air temperature rising, and powers up to cool it. But items in the fridge take a lot longer to warm up, so you put this rubber block over the thermostat and only if that warms up does the fridge start cooling. It would save loads of energy caused by opening the door just to get something out.
So many people here are pointing out that you can save more power by actually turning the socket off/unplugging but they fail to realise that the vast majority can't even be arsed to do that.
@Ken Hagan
My understanding was that the tube was kept hot because the manufacturers were too cheap to spring for a second transformer to run the electronics. They just tapped off the fly-back converter that produced the multi kV for the accelerator circuit.
This is an out of date and old fashioned method - pointing the bleeding thing at the wall sockets only gonna waste valuable bum scratching energy. What they need to do , seeing as they can get IP signals down the electricity cabling - is to assign an IPV6 address to each socket so's I can write some cron scripts to shut them down every night. This system could then be merged with a TIVO web-based front end for scheduling any nightly recordings.
I've had a similar unit in my home for some time now. While the best way to economise is clearly to use the flippin' power switch (duh!) it does come in handy for holiday absences; I can turn off the entire network, monitors, storage units, printers, ADSL router and all the wall wort chargers that are normally needful - all at the push of a button rather than crawling in the dust. Yeah, I know, but it is easier....
They sold something similar in Lidl for a tenner. Is that a another case of rip-off Britain?
By the by, I am using the one I bought in Lidl every day. I have alot of appliances on remote control. One more thing: it's not that I am lazy, you see, I am somewhat disabled.
Jean
PS I am lazy too.
As an aging radio amateur, I applaud anything that will pique the adolescent's interest in things RF. The time spent figuring out how to bedevil the old coot who wouldn't return your ball will be amply repaid when the rest of us who know which end of the electron is up saunter off this mortal (scramble-wound) coil.
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