Let’s say I have a computer plugged in, or a microwave, or phone charger plugged in. Isn’t the point of a device being off is that it’s not supposed to be using electricity? How much watts of power am I looking at that’s being consumed per hour?
Where does this apply and where does it not? Shouldn’t I try to unplug everything as much as possible to save money?
In: 101
A lot of devices (I’m not talking about chargers but more like tv, computer, game console) don’t really turn off. They just sleep and may even have some part of it running slowly to wake the device up. They still use way less power than when turn on but it isn’t near zero.
The power button doesn’t turn off power. It is just a signal to the device to power on or to go to sleep.
Some devices may wake them up automatically from time to time (you damn windows update!!) for update. That a good example of devices in sleep.
Computers, for example, may still be connected to ethernet in low speed. Because it is a way to turn them on. Same as USB devices (keyboard and mouse).
One reason to not fully shut them down is so they can turn on faster. If they don’t shutdown they don’t have to reload everything. It is already loaded.
Manufacturers don’t care about your electric bills, they just care about the cost on their side.
One silly example is from a YouTuber EEVBlog that makes the math about a silly smoke alarm. Upgrading a component to a more efficient one (for like 0.25$ more (don’t quote me on that)) could shut down a power station because because of the tiny energy saved on a full country scale.
Latest Answers