I was watching a video about smart home setup when I realised that even if I switch off the device from my phone, it will still consume the power then whats the benefit besides you dont have to getbup from your couch to do it manually. Am I right or IoT things work differently.
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The power consumed by modern smart plugs and similar devices is very miniscule. The one I use at my desk consumes less than the 1 watt minimum value on my power meter.
> whats the benefit besides you dont have to getbup from your couch to do it manually
That’s the benefit. It’s not even necessarily that you can do it manually by *remote* – you can tie the room lighting brightness to time of day so you don’t [[BIDEN BLAST]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9FFQNY29Bc) your eyeballs with the 3000 lumen dining room luminaire when you shuffle off to piss at 3AM, and handle turning them on and off with motion sensors, door opening sensors or even [millimeter wave radar](https://www.aqara.com/en/product/presence-sensor-fp2/).
Smart bulbs also tend to double as radio relays for zigbee protocol and other smarthome mesh systems – even when not lit up, they perform a useful function to the system.
They do consume a tiny amount of power when turned off, yes. But the modern microelectronics used in these devices is very power efficient so they hardly uses any power at all. The same electronics also comes in other devices with batteries such as remote controllers to act as switches or sensors. And they usually come with tiny button cell batteries that last for months. So the power draw from a powered off light bulb is not going to be noticeable. It is only when you turn on the light that they consume their full power.
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These devices power themselves down partly. They still need to be working to receive a command to turn on again. Buttons on them are usually microswitches that bridge two contacts and then rebound to an off position, which gives a working logic element a command. To turn something on an off fully using a switch, it has to stick to one of two positions like the black rockers labelled “I / O” on the back of computers.
Another way how a small device can turn a bigger one off is a relay, where it energizes an electromagnet that moves to connect a switch, then everything behind the this switch can be fully off. You can hear it with big appliances like fridges. But the part with the relay has to remain powered on and waiting.