Old Sky+ Box - an observation on power use.

Raxiel

Raxiel said:

brewerdave said:

dunstonh said:

The Sky Q mini boxes draw around 17w in standby.    We turn our mini boxes off now when the TV isnt in use.

My observation - Sky Q/HD charges dwarf the standby costs of the box - if you can afford Sky's charges

People with wealth generally still like to look after their money. 

So do these wealthy people haggle with Sky over subscription costs ?  I worked out that leaving the box in standby was costing £30 pa so I arranged to use smart plugs to shut it down for ~ 8 hours overnight reducing the cost considerably.
 I then haggled ~ £45 pm off of the standard sub for my Sky package.
I bet there are still loads of customers paying Sky northward of £100pm for TV alone.

Some of them probably do, there's a section of these boards dedicated to it. Although it's usually about getting more for the same price, rather than paying less. The sly move to 18 month contracts makes it harder to get a deal though. You can't just renew with each Black Friday bargain, and any retention offers (in my experience) are only for 12 of the 18 months, so you're stuck at full price for at least 5 of them.

Not speaking for anyone else, but if I (or the rest of the family) actually watched a lot of subscription TV then I wouldn't mind paying for it, because I'd actually be getting something for my money. Whether it's good value is an opinion for each person.But high standby draw when something isn't being used is straight up waste,

Anyway, I stuck a spare P110 between the Sky Q main box and the wall out of curiosity this morning. It's drawing 11W right now, which isn't actually all that bad, and lower than I'd expected, although sky like to pre-load shows they want to promote onto the disk in the background so it peaks higher at times even when off, will take a look after a couple of days for a better 'average'

So just for reference after 2 weeks of monitoring.

Our Sky Q box is used mainly to run streaming apps for an hour in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon and has only one scheduled recording a week.

The box consumes about 0.3kWh a day, or 10kWh a month. it draws 14W when it's on, and can drop to 11W when it's 'on standby' but it will typically hold the 14W power draw for hours after it was put into standby mode. For a couple of hours every night, it drops to <0.1W.

So I was right that turning it off appears to make little to no difference, although overall it does use less than I though it did.

mmmmikey

Thanks for the previous post @Raxiel . I guess "little" is a relative term - your Sky box is actually using slightly more energy than my fridge and maybe costs £3 a month to run. Certainly not a life changing amount for most people and I'd agree that this isn't a huge cost, but all these little bits add up.

Raxiel

mmmmikey said:

Thanks for the previous post @Raxiel . I guess "little" is a relative term - your Sky box is actually using slightly more energy than my fridge and maybe costs £3 a month to run. Certainly not a life changing amount for most people and I'd agree that this isn't a huge cost, but all these little bits add up.

When I say turning it 'off', I mean that putting it in standby (orange light) rather than just leaving it fully on (green light).

Still, it's a big (relative) improvement over older Sky boxes, so credit where it's due.

Will soon be academic for me though, as I've canceled the service and they'll be wanting the box back in a month.

Grizzlebeard

I would imagine the router + WiFi on 24/7 would use more than a skybox.

I turn off router and peripherals with the computer when I'm not using it.

My average consumption was 0.856 kWh/day last 12months (from spreadsheet) - mainly refrigerator.

Anti-creep LED is on for 12-18 hrs/day during which I'm using ~12W free elecy with standby stuff and LED lights.

Not looking forward to VoIP when they rip out my copper phone.

mmmmikey

My broadband router and WiFi use about 0.31 kWh/day so much the same. Turning the router on and off can effect performance as each time you power it up it experiments with different speeds until it finds the optimum. Also, an increasing number of smart devices are being sold that need a stable internet connection to work so switching it off isn't going to work for a lot of people. That's not to say it shouldn't be done as clearly it works for some, just wanted to point out there are some pitfalls.

Coffeekup

Grizzlebeard said:

My average consumption was 0.856 kWh/day last 12months (from spreadsheet) - mainly refrigerator.

Anti-creep LED is on for 12-18 hrs/day during which I'm using ~12W free elecy with standby stuff and LED lights.

That's  impressive.... I consider myself a low user but after seeing this it's reducing me to tears.

I have TV which gets used about 4-6 hours a day.
An amp/cd player (an hour's use a day) which gets turned off at the wall when in use.
Kettle (boiled once a day).
PC and monitor which is used 30 mins a day if that, then turned off at the wall.
Washing machine which gets used once to twice a week then turned off at wall.
A toaster which is used once a day for 2-3 minutes.
An oven which is is used for around an hour a week and WiFi and a fridge freezer.

The lowest I can get my daily kwh's is 2.2 but on average over the month it's 2.7kwh's. I don't have an energy reading plug, but I'm starting to think if my FF is guzzling energy.

Edit: I say the lowest kWh used was 2.2 a day but that was in September and October when the toaster broke and I didn't replace it. After that it's been back up to 2.6/2.7 a day.

Grizzlebeard

mmmmikey said:

My broadband router and WiFi use about 0.31 kWh/day so much the same. Turning the router on and off can effect performance as each time you power it up it experiments with different speeds until it finds the optimum. Also, an increasing number of smart devices are being sold that need a stable internet connection to work so switching it off isn't going to work for a lot of people. That's not to say it shouldn't be done as clearly it works for some, just wanted to point out there are some pitfalls.

Coffeekup said:

Grizzlebeard said:

My average consumption was 0.856 kWh/day...

That's  impressive.... I consider myself a low user but after seeing this it's reducing me to tears.

I have TV which ....

I agree with everything you both say. Definitely not for an average modern household (until after the techno-apocalypse )

Being "Eco" is serious, but has now become a hobby for me. I was bought up in the 1950-60s when replacing elbow grease with something that "plugs in" wasn't an option. I don't remember them as unhappy times. Less stress and a much lower threshold for feelings of satisfaction. Now a brush and dustpan or a mop and a bucket of water from the rain butt keeps me occupied in my retirement.

Not screaming out in defence of my opinions, but energy used during re-syncing is 3 minutes as compoared to 24hrs averaged on standby, and since my personal stoneage broadband is copper @ ~5mbs it is't determined by switching it on and off as it re-syncs 1-2, sometimes 10, times a day anyway. (My idling mind concluded this while manually scraping excess grease from a saucepan to delay any blockage in the sink drain pipe.)

Not preaching, just passing time. o:

Wibby.

mmmmikey

Grizzlebeard said:

mmmmikey said:

My broadband router and WiFi use about 0.31 kWh/day so much the same. Turning the router on and off can effect performance as each time you power it up it experiments with different speeds until it finds the optimum. Also, an increasing number of smart devices are being sold that need a stable internet connection to work so switching it off isn't going to work for a lot of people. That's not to say it shouldn't be done as clearly it works for some, just wanted to point out there are some pitfalls.

Coffeekup said:

Grizzlebeard said:

My average consumption was 0.856 kWh/day...

That's  impressive.... I consider myself a low user but after seeing this it's reducing me to tears.

I have TV which ....

I agree with everything you both say. Definitely not for an average modern household (until after the techno-apocalypse )

Being "Eco" is serious, but has now become a hobby for me. I was bought up in the 1950-60s when replacing elbow grease with something that "plugs in" wasn't an option. I don't remember them as unhappy times. Less stress and a much lower threshold for feelings of satisfaction. Now a brush and dustpan or a mop and a bucket of water from the rain butt keeps me occupied in my retirement.

Not screaming out in defence of my opinions, but energy used during re-syncing is 3 minutes as compoared to 24hrs averaged on standby, and since my personal stoneage broadband is copper @ ~5mbs it is't determined by switching it on and off as it re-syncs 1-2, sometimes 10, times a day anyway. (My idling mind concluded this while manually scraping excess grease from a saucepan to delay any blockage in the sink drain pipe.)

Not preaching, just passing time. o:

Wibby.

All makes perfect sense to me - if turning the broadband router on and off worked for me too I'd be doing too for the same reason that you do. Like you, finding solutions to, in your words "being Eco" has become a hobby for me too. And when you get down to low levels the amount of energy a broadband router uses is significant. I've been playing with smart technology as a way of saving energy / reducing heating costs and that needs an internet connection to work. Otherwise, I probably would ditch broadband altogether and just use 4g on my mobile which is an option for some to consider.

(And my idling mind is concluding that if I write this I can delay doing the washing up )

bob2302

wrf12345 said:

Eventually I was forced to stop paying the TV licence (otherwise I could not justify paying the absurd energy s/c's) and go the firestick route - 40 inch LED TV. firestick plus small amplifier

Legally, you still need a licence to use BBC iPlayer, or watch anything live over any streaming service.

wrf12345

"Legally, you still need a licence to use BBC iPlayer, or watch anything live over any streaming service."

I much prefer binge watching series than real time TV so no great loss and the Beeb I do not miss (Radio 4 is still available, hurray!) so the £160 I save on the licence offsets the extra £100 in standing charges that the energy companies are stealing off me. When s/c's are phased out then I will buy amazon prime rather than the TV licence. I think the Beeb is on a slippery slope because once people get used to on-demand TV they are unlikely to miss real-time TV. You have to pay for the internet but I would be paying that anyway and use 4G where prices are way down compared to a couple of years ago.

Luckily my income is way up this year and I could afford all of the above but refuse to let cartel like companies rip me off.

Just to add, using a hotspot on my Nokia X10 smartphone means minimal extra power consumption and can be turned off when not needed.