5 ms·
A few years ago I measured the power consumption of various devices around my home, using an inline meter of unknown accuracy (e.g., TV plugs into meter, meter
by hackuser 9y ago
A few years ago I measured the power consumption of various devices around my home, using an inline meter of unknown accuracy (e.g., TV plugs into meter, meter plugs into wall outlet).
There weren't many surprises, but my cable TV boxes were disappointing: Two different models both used the same amount of power, 25-30 W, regardless of whether they were 'on' or 'off', and no matter how long they were 'off'. No other devices that drew any significant power behaved this way; in comparison, my laptop used 1W when asleep.
The cable boxes are merely computers, and not even general-purpose ones - i.e., only a small number of predictable features have to be implemented - and the vendor is complete control of the hardware and software. There is no reason an effective sleep mode couldn't be implemented. And think about the mass deployments of these devices by the cable companies - how much power could be saved by investing in some very standard, available tech, and add up the impact on customers' electric bills and the environment.
However, I wonder if other models of cable boxes are the same.
- caf 9y agoThis seems a pretty clear case of misaligned incentives. There's no reason for the cable company to make more energy-efficient boxes - they don't pay for the electricity use, and customers can't generally switch to different provider in order to get a more efficient cable box.
- hackuser 9y agoAnd customers generally have no idea about the boxes' power consumption.
- Symbiote 9y agoEuropean regulations have required the standby power of devices like this to be drastically reduced. As an example, the first one I found has a standby power of 0.5W. Even if the USA doesn't have similar rules, the improvements in power supplies etc should gradually find their way into American-only products. https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-efficient-products/standby https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency/ener...
- OliverJones 9y agoYeah, I measured the same thing on the cable box, an object which gets about 40 minutes use a day in my household. So when my local utility (UK-owned National Grid) did a promo for power strips that shut off all the plugs when one plug stops drawing power, I bought one. Works great. Takes about two minutes for the cable box to boot up when I need it. National Grid lost a 35w base load (24x7 load) by selling me that strip. 35w costs me about $45 a year, and the power strip cost me $15.
- hackuser 9y agoIf my cable box loses power then it loses all its channel guide data, and it takes maybe 15 minutes to reload. It really seems unbelievable. Why isn't the data stored on the local disk? How much data could that be and why does it take more than 10 seconds to download? On my box, it is all text.
- OliverJones 9y agoAgreed. The monopoly regulators who tell the cable companies what to do should give them a limit on the electric load their customer-premises equipment (cable boxes) may draw when idle. It should be no more than dozens of milliwatts. When the load exceeds that, the cost of that electricity to their customers should be refunded via a credit line item in each bill. That will give the cable operators a way to transition to better equipment, and an incentive to get the transition completed. Accountability: there's no other way.
- dade_ 9y agoI use a master controlled switched power bar, controlled by my receiver, because of a similar issue with power vampires: https://www.rocketfishproducts.com/pdp/RF-HTS205/5709672 https://www.rocketfishproducts.com/pdp/RF-HTS205/5709672