Intelliplug Do they work? Are they worth it? How much does a tv on standby cost?

finnegan2010

Hi there, Has anyone used these? I have three 42 Inch plasma tvs that are on standby with their Ntl boxes 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The tvs are used randomly and the plugs are a night mare to get to. Also once installed when turned off can you switch the tvs back on without having to mess with the plugs?



http://shop.bordgaisenergy.ie/epages/BGE.sf/en_IE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BGE/Products/TVA106

Also just found this on the web

"A television which is usually left on standby for say about 20 hrs will cost you £3.65." Come on this cant be correct????? Can it !!!!!!!

iMax

Why not get remote control sockets ? They're about €10 & cut power via remote meaning you don't have to access the socket


Edit: They're far cheaper direct - http://www.oneclickpower.com/shop/

finnegan2010

ME AND REMOTES = DISASTER. I have controls everywhere and it would mean sticking the control in behind a dresser to turn on.
but ill check em out mate :cool:

robtri

each television is different, you would have to check your TV's power consumption in standby mode.. to see if it worth your while...

iMax

Emailed them about shipping - £10 per order. Thanks for bringing them to my attention OP, I'm gonna order some.

bonkey

AFAIK, a unit of electricity in Ireland costs 16c.

A unit is 1 KWh - which could be (f'r example) a 10kw appliance running for 6 minutes, a 1kw appliance running for an hour, a 100w appliance (e.g. a bulb) running for 10 hours, etc.

From dark memory, I seem to recall reading that some TV units can swallow 40w when on standby. That would mean that in 25 hours of standby they would consume 1kwh, costing you 16c.

For easy numbers, lets say its 1 unit per day, per tv, and that you do indeed have 40w-standby monsters. Thats 48c per day for your 3 tvs. Allowing for rounding errors, use of tv etc. its probably safe to say that 3 tvs in-and-around 40w standby are costing you about 40c per day from standby. Over a year, that would be almost 150 notes.

If your tvs are more efficient (and hopefully they are) then obviously thats way too high. If they only swallow 10w each, then its 1/4 of that....still north of 35 euro.

Bear in mind, these are rough numbers, using rounding etc. but its surprising how quickly the numbers can add up. I usen't turn off speakers, tvs, monitors, printers etc. etc. I'd even leave my computer running to "save" boot time. Sure...its only a couple of w here and there....and pretty quickly we're into hundreds of euros per year.

cnocbui

I suspect you would struggle to find a TV that consumed 40w on standby. Decades ago there were CRT TV's with an instant on feature that kept the electron guns warmed all the time, but times have changed.

My 50" plasma consumes 1w on standby. So that means one of those intelliplugs - oxy moron if ever there was - would take 16.4 years just to pay for itself, let alone actually start saving money.

At random I just picked a Samsung 46" LCD tx - LE46C654 - in case my tv is a fluke. The LCD consumes 0.3 wattts on standby so would take 54.7 years to repay an intelliplugs cost.

What's that old saying - 'a fool and their money are soon parted'

iMax

I bought two of the smaller units (€22.99 each on the BG site) for £5 each inc. shipping on ebay yesterday evening, they should be delivered Monday or Tuesday. I have a 42" Plasma & a 32" LCD. I pretty much always have them on standby, now the TVs themselves may not consume a whole lot of power, but the peripheral items I have attached do, the thing about these plugs is that when the TV goes to standby, the other items have their power cut & that's what sold me on them.

freddyuk

If you fit a simple energy monitor you will very soon realise that worrying about electrical equipment being left on standby is a complete red herring. The usage of TV's and computers etc on standby is irrelevent.
Controlling the use of heavy draw equipment will save you a decent amount of money but turning off the standby will save you next to nothing.

gizmo555

freddyuk wrote: »

If you fit a simple energy monitor you will very soon realise that worrying about electrical equipment being left on standby is a complete red herring. The usage of TV's and computers etc on standby is irrelevent.
Controlling the use of heavy draw equipment will save you a decent amount of money but turning off the standby will save you next to nothing.

+1

Just out of curiosity I put my TV (10 year old 32" Panasonic tube type), Sky+ box, and DVD player onto a plugin power meter, with each device on standby.

In total, they drew 8 watts. If you assume they're off 16 hours a day, it would take nearly eight days to use one unit of power. That comes to about €7.50 a year - much less if you happen to have a night rate meter.

There might be a case for using these to reduce fire risk, but none at all to save significant amounts of electricity.