AV system standby power eliminator

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › AV system standby power eliminator

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#209032 9-Mar-2017 19:50

I've been using one of these to eliminate standby power on my AV system for a few years. Basically you configure it to turn off when the current draw indicates everything's on standby. It listens for an IR command to wake up, which works well with the harmony remote. Unfortunately it's stopped working, and so far I haven't managed to get it working right.

Can anyone recommend another option? This page recommends a few but it's old. We have one of the manual switches but it's annoying and we forget. This remote control socket looks good, and comes with a remote, so the Harmony should be able to control it. Anyone used that one?

Any other recommendations? The AV system (TV, receiver, sub, PS3, R.Pi2) uses over $100 of power a year when it's turned off, so it's worth doing.

1 | 2

306 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1733969 9-Mar-2017 20:49

Standby power isn't a great problem for modern consumer devices. Most tend to use 0.1 watts or less. My Samsung TV is rated at 0.05 watts. About 20c a year I think I worked out a while back. Some products like washing machines tend to still use a bit eg 5 to 10 watts.

The standby elminator device will also use power, of course.

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1733970 9-Mar-2017 21:00

Lastman: Standby power isn't a great problem for modern consumer devices. Most tend to use 0.1 watts or less. My Samsung TV is rated at 0.05 watts. About 20c a year I think I worked out a while back. Some products like washing machines tend to still use a bit eg 5 to 10 watts.

The standby elminator device will also use power, of course.

As per my post, my AV setup uses over 100W of power a year when turned off. I measured the standby power draw. With Flick it will be a little less, but still probably $70/year.

Lastman

306 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1734156 10-Mar-2017 06:36

timmmay:
Lastman: Standby power isn't a great problem for modern consumer devices. Most tend to use 0.1 watts or less. My Samsung TV is rated at 0.05 watts. About 20c a year I think I worked out a while back. Some products like washing machines tend to still use a bit eg 5 to 10 watts.

The standby elminator device will also use power, of course.

As per my post, my AV setup uses over 100W of power a year when turned off. I measured the standby power draw. With Flick it will be a little less, but still probably $70/year.

Sorry, missed that. There must be a TV or receiver from the 90s in there. Most modern receivers are fine. Hi-fi amplifiers can be a different story.

I'm just wondering if your power calculations are correct. The Flick at $70 sounds incredibly high.

PaulBags

809 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1734160 10-Mar-2017 06:55

timmmay: ... This remote control socket looks good, and comes with a remote, so the Harmony should be able to control it.

Looks about the same as this but costs a lot more. Costs nearly as much as Jaycars pack with three sockets. (I haven't tried them).

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734163 10-Mar-2017 07:08

Lastman:
Sorry, missed that. There must be a TV or receiver from the 90s in there. Most modern receivers are fine. Hi-fi amplifiers can be a different story.

I'm just wondering if your power calculations are correct. The Flick at $70 sounds incredibly high.

It's a 55" Samsung LCD TV that's probably 5-6 years old now, Onkyo receiver, PS3, and sub. I also have three PC fans built into my AV centre to cool the receiver and PS3, otherwise they both get pretty hot. Right now they just run of small PSU plugged into the device that turns everything off, but I did build a little device with a solid state relay that turns the power to those off when the TV's USB turns off. It doesn't have to be a huge draw to add up over time.

I'll measure the power use while off again this evening if I remember. I might try to work out which device is the main culprit. The sub is probably a leading candidate, it has auto power off but once it does that it doesn't auto power back on well.

Sky boxes and similar, which we don't have, use a lot of power when turned off.

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734164 10-Mar-2017 07:18

PaulBags:
timmmay: ... This remote control socket looks good, and comes with a remote, so the Harmony should be able to control it.

Looks about the same as this but costs a lot more. Costs nearly as much as Jaycars pack with three sockets. (I haven't tried them).

The three outlet version is about twice as much. Not bad value actually, and I trust jarcar more than a random website, thanks :)

This one is much cheaper, $9 each, but out of stock unfortunately.

richms

28218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734178 10-Mar-2017 07:57

PB have this one, It drops in price considerably when I log in, so you should be able to bargin them down in store.

Richard rich.ms

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734192 10-Mar-2017 08:35

richms:

PB have this one, It drops in price considerably when I log in, so you should be able to bargin them down in store.

I see ascent has it for $28 shipped. I do prefer branded products.

Documentation seems poor, I can't find it on the Belkin website to work stuff out.

Any idea why the ethernet is plugged into it?
Why would it wait an hour to switch off after the TV is turned off? My current one takes 1 minute.

The remote control one from PB seems simpler.

Jase2985

13466 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1734197 10-Mar-2017 08:52

the ethernet is for the IR sensor as shown in the video on PBtechs site.

the time thing is probably so its not constantly switching the loads on and off.

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734199 10-Mar-2017 08:57

Ah ok, I didn't notice that in the video, thanks. I prefer immediate off because it's just sitting there taking power, making a noise with the fans, and I can turn it on easily.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18668 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1734213 10-Mar-2017 09:18

For years we have simply switched off everything at the wall when retiring for the night. We must have two dozen different devices all feeding from the same circuit. Don't know what the total power draw in standby is since we don't use standby, just cut the power. It has always worked fine except for the stupid DVR which loses its clock setting VHS-style but that hasn't been an issue for quite awhile. Reason for doing it this way is safety as well as power saving.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734216 10-Mar-2017 09:21

Rikkitic:

For years we have simply switched off everything at the wall when retiring for the night. We must have two dozen different devices all feeding from the same circuit. Don't know what the total power draw in standby is since we don't use standby, just cut the power. It has always worked fine except for the stupid DVR which loses its clock setting VHS-style but that hasn't been an issue for quite awhile. Reason for doing it this way is safety as well as power saving.

Our plug is behind the AV unit down at ground level, it's quite awkward to get to. Currently using an Ecoswitch, which is cheap and much easier, but I prefer the ease of having my Harmony remote turn every on and off.

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#1734224 10-Mar-2017 09:35

timmmay:

As per my post, my AV setup uses over 100W of power a year when turned off. I measured the standby power draw. With Flick it will be a little less, but still probably $70/year.

I think your maths is a bit off. 100w is only 1/10 of one unit (1 unit = 1kw) and my power here in Auckland is only 17c per unit. If you used $100/yr that equates to around 1.3kw/day (@ 20c/unit). No way would standby use that much power.

richms

28218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734233 10-Mar-2017 09:46

100w is 0.1kw, so over a day, 2.4kwh. So 2.4 * 365 * 0.20 = $175.2 per year.

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1734236 10-Mar-2017 09:49

I measured it a few years ago when I put the first devices in. I'll measure again this weekend to check it's worth bothering with.

1 | 2