Amazingly Ill Informed Telegraph Article

Qyburn

I saw this on something about smart meters. But it's not just smart meters they spout nonsense about, for example ..

"Leaving a TV on standby costs £24.61 a year, while leaving a Freeview box plugged in at the mains adds £23.10 to annual bills, research by British Gas found. The luxury of leaving a microwave on standby costs households an average of £16.37 a year, while a washing machine and tumble dryer add £4.73 and £4.79"

In the real world our TV costs us 88p per year on standby. Freeview box around £9.00, but they apparently don't realise you won't get anything recorded if it's not left on standby. Microwave standby power is too low for me to measure. 

The article signs off with ..
"Will you be saying no to a smart meter? Let us know in the comments section below"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/smart-meter-why-say-no-get-one

MattMattMattUK

It is somewhat of a grey area with modern connected tech, my TV with WiFi off uses around 0.38w however with WiFi on and network wake that rises to 25w in standby. 

Qyburn

Ours is supposed to be less than 2W in network standby, but I've not measured that myself. They also quote 25W during software or EPG update, but even if that's enabled it's only while those are happening, not 25W 24 hours a day.

Have you allowed time for yours to go to sleep? Ours draws 10 or 12W for a minute or so after being shut off, before dropping to less than 0.5W.

MattMattMattUK

Yep, I have done tests long term with a Tapo plug. 25w with WiFi network standby, drops to 4w with WiFi off but networked by cable, drops below 0.5w with cable networking but network wake etc. turned off.

SAC2334

My Huawei Youview box has three standby mode .Always Ready,  (uses most energy ), Smart (uses less and quick to start up ) and Energy Saver  ( uses less energy but takes 2 minutes to start up ) .

I don t know the watts used on any of these 3 modes . The way prices are going on Octopus Tracker at moment I might be going back to Energy Saver .

MultiFuelBurner

SAC2334 said:

My Huawei Youview box has three standby mode .Always Ready,  (uses most energy ), Smart (uses less and quick to start up ) and Energy Saver  ( uses less energy but takes 2 minutes to start up ) .

I don t know the watts used on any of these 3 modes . The way prices are going on Octopus Tracker at moment I might be going back to Energy Saver .

You forgot monitor everything you do and say and send it back to China mode.

Fredw56

Don’t believe what the spec sheet for devices say. We have a Panasonic TV and did have a hard disk recorder. The TV was supposed to use about 2W and the Recorder about the same. When tested that was found to be 15.5W for the TV and 16.5W for the recorder. That’s as bad as leaving our kitchen lights on permanently which, of course, no one would ever do.

The TV is now off at the mains and has not been switched on since June. I gave away the hard disk recorder.

I tested everything else I could find in the house. The 4G router uses about 4W, the network switch 2.5W. The microwave, nothing at all, it’s a simple one. Power bricks were interesting. Apple chargers negligible when not charging and when they are the power factor is corrected. Most of the other power bricks have no power factor correction and are as bad as 50%. So even if they are only using a few Watts, they are wasting half of it. Charger for the hand held vac is one offender.

MultiFuelBurner

To be hones if they under egg'd the figures someone would pull it up and there is no easy list of energy usage per device that works for all.

I'm essence the article says turn stuff off, save money and it's not wrong and even if over egg'd it's just to show what you could save.

No big harm imo 

Qyburn

I guess your TV must either predate the EU regulations, or has a pile of optional functions enabled. I can't think what they'd be because 25W is a hell of a lot for something basically idle and just waiting for instruction. What model is it, and what age? 

That sort of power consumption is not inherent in network equipment. For example our main router draws 14W while providing dual band wireless, 5 or 6 active Ethernet connections and PoE to the 4G router as well as routing, NAT and firewall functions.
 

Spoonie_Turtle

Qyburn said:

I guess your TV must either predate the EU regulations, or has a pile of optional functions enabled. I can't think what they'd be because 25W is a hell of a lot for something basically idle and just waiting for instruction. What model is it, and what age? 

Agreed.  Our 42" TV barely registers on the power monitor when in standby, even though when it's turned on it's connected to the Wifi and fully smart (edit: including bluetooth, that's always on), ready to go.  It doesn't have (to my knowledge) any voice command recognition turned on though.  In use it draws between 40-60W so 25W in standby is a lot.

[Our router draws 5.5W for dual band wifi and a couple of ethernet connections.]

MattMattMattUK

It is a two year old 75 inch Sony OLED, however if you look at a lot of the proper testing done online it is prevalent over most smart TVs. At peak, full white screen on HDR it can peak at around 120w but in general usage it hovers in the high 90w range. 

In standby most smart TVs are maintaining a WiFi connection, a Bluetooth module is running, they have wake on network and control over HDMI running, they also run updates, keep content screens, apps and EPGs (if tuned) running. If I turn off all smart features and if I could run it over ethernet it would call to 0.38w in standby.