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Cable Boxes Are the 2nd Biggest Energy Users In Many Homes
SpzToid (869795) writes 224 million U.S. cable TV set-top boxes combined consume as much electricity as produced by four giant nuclear reactors, running around the clock. They have become the biggest single energy user in many homes, apart from air conditioning. Cheryl Williamsen, a Los Alamitos architect, has three of the boxes leased from her cable provider in her home, but she had no idea how much power they consumed until recently, when she saw a rating on the back for as much as 500 watts — about the same as a washing machine. A typical set-top cable box with a digital recorder can consume as much as 35 watts of power, costing about $8 a month for a typical Southern California consumer. And the devices use nearly as much power turned off as they do when they are turned on. The article outlines a voluntary industry agreement that should make a dent in this power consumption (it "calls for a power reduction in the range of 10% to 45% by 2017"), but makes the point that much larger gains are possible: "Energy experts say the boxes could be just as efficient as smartphones, laptop computers or other electronic devices that use a fraction of the power thanks to microprocessors and other technology that conserves electricity. Ideally, they say, these boxes could be put into a deep sleep mode when turned off, cutting consumption to a few watts. At that rate, a box could cost less than $1 a month for power, depending on how much it is used."
If you've got a better way to toast a cheese sandwich while watching tv, I'd like to hear it.
I have basic cable so I can plug right into my TV. However with digital TV being common why arn't more TV's handling it so you don't need the cable box.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Maybe if you have three cable boxes and a monthly cable bill, you can save a lot MORE money by just canceling cable.
Got rid of Charter two years ago - now I have a ChannelMaster for OTA, and a couple of Roku boxes. Feels nice not spending that $90 a month.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
even when they are off. at least the older Scientific Atlanta ones did. time warner cable in NYC has new Cisco and Motorola ones that are a lot more efficient and don't get nearly as hot
If it consumes more than one Watt, it's nowhere near "deep sleep".
I'm very, very surprised that refrigerators aren't #2. Or possibly electric water heaters, in houses that have them.
Seems you can't buy any form of digibox these days without some serious firmware bugs whether its just picture freezing , "buffering" remote control key presses until it can be bothered to process them, missed recordings for no apparent reason or just complete crashes requiring a hard reboot. Or if like me you were dumb enough to buy a Sagemcom box - then all of the above.
Just bring the line in and go with a standard hardware. Stop charging me a monthly fee for every single TV in the house, whether it is on or not.
Apparently EU policy requires that devices which are off or in standby use no more than 0.5 watts.
Whether it's actually enforced, I have no idea.
Number one consumer of electric power: Air conditioning unit. THOUSANDS OF WATTS
Number two consumer of electric power: Refrigerator. HUNDREDS OF WATTS
Cable boxes don't come in number two and they don't consume 35 watts.
So if you're keeping track not only is not "number 2" (a dubious distinction) but its use of electric power is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE below what's chewing up power. In fact, here in Arizona our A/C runs about 20 hours a day. That uses more power per day than the cable box uses in a year. I could ditch cable altogether (I have Comcast so it's a constant thought) and my power bill won't change by 1%.
How do I know? I use a http://www.amazon.com/P3-Inter... kill-a-watt. The cable box draws less than 1 amp (12W) and that's while it's on and it's the big Motorola unit just like the picture in the original article.
Do you like facts and statistics and data upon which to base conclusions? You should get one of these kill-a-watts. They're awesome and they're quickto end stupid discussions that say you should unplug your cable box.
Off to unplug my wifi router. I hear it draws 0.5A.
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Which is it? 500 watts or 35 watts? This summary and title are completely ridiculous, I can think of plenty of other things that are using more power in my home than a cable box. Refrigerator, freezer, washer, dryer, hair blow dryer, desktop computer, television, central heating/air conditioning, range (if it's electric), power tools/garage, home theatre system, the list goes on and on.
The reason the "500 Watts!!!" is disingenuous, is because many cable boxes have a switched outlet that allow you to plug in a television set to the back of it. Back in the good ol' days, you could click on the cable box and the TV would turn on as well, if it was plugged into the back. That CRT might draw as much as 500 watts, so that's what it's rated for. With the advent of universal remotes, electronic controls in sets that forget the last power setting and the need for constant power to keep settings and "quick-on" for many sets, this is now an antiquated port that's just a hold over from the olden days of cable TV.
The STB might be the 2nd biggest energy user in many homes, but I wouldn't bet on *most* homes.
The 500W rating might have been for power passthrough (master/slave system) maybe?
My stereo can pass through power to e.g. a subwoofer, so only when I actually turn on the stereo the subwoofer is powered. The cable box could similarly have a power passhtrough for either the TV or the audio system, which is rated at 500 Watts.
Just measured my old Scientific Atlanta box (that actually looks just like the ones in the article's pictures).
I get 8 Watts while running, 0.9 Watts in standby. It slightly peaks when I switch channels.
"four giant nuclear plants?" Dammit, that's extremely useless a unit of measurement.
Literally everyone should know by now that the standard SI unit for power consumption is medium-sized town.
So, how many medium sized town do those cable boxes consume in total?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
"Cheryl Williamsen, a Los Alamitos architect, has three of the boxes leased from her cable provider in her home, but she had no idea how much power they consumed until recently, when she saw a rating on the back for as much as 500 watts" Rating doesn't equal consumption. I can put a 1000W power supply in my computer but just watching youtube videos doesn't mean it's consuming all 1000W. It consumes far less than the 1000W unless the system demands it. Only way to know how much a device like this consumes is to measure it. One inexpensive way to do this is the KilloWatt meter.
She's reading the outlet capacity. No cable box draws 500W.
Plop a "kill-a-watt" on your cable box and turn it on, note the power used. now hit the "off" button the remote. See how the power use did not drop. That is because "OFF" is simply blanking the screen and turning off the front led's and display.
It's why most pro AV installs will put the cable box if it's not a DVR type, on a power sequencer that the control processor will turn on and off with the system. The drawback is some of the newer cable boxes take forever to boot after power is restored.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
i just checked the back of my Cisco PVR.
And it says it's rated for 500W.
Why on earth would it even *need* to be rated that high?
Someone clearly expected at some point it might need to draw that much power, I just can't figure out why. That seems really really high to me.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
A typical set-top cable box with a digital recorder can consume as much as 35 watts of power, costing about $8 a month for a typical Southern California consumer.
A "typical Southern California consumer" pays less than 20 cents per kWh.
35 Watts * 24 hours/day * 30 days/month = 25,200 Watt hours or 25 Kilowatt hours.
25 Kilowatts * $0.20/Kilowatt hour = $5.00
I recall back when the XBox 360 and PS3 were all the rage on the market someone pointed out how absurdly power hungry they were (particularly in comparison to the Wii, which used less power while running than the PS3 used while sleeping). With the newest consoles from Sony and Microsoft out, and their respective camps declaring those to be the greatest thing since air itself, it would be interesting to know how they compare for wattage against a cable box. Being as many dedicated gamers don't want to ever turn their boxes off, I would expect they are wasting more power than most cable boxes.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Technically, nowhere in the article did it say they consumed 500W. It said they were *rated* for 500W, which means the hardware within is capable of handling a 500W charge. I agree that even mentioning it in the article is just an attention grabbing tactic, but the point of that line is that the architect saw the very high rating which led them to investigate the actual usage, which turned out to be 35W (which is still high for something many people leave on 24/7 and are increasingly having multiple of in their home).
Hahahaha
I have a TV in every room, it's called my iPad. I watch Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBOGO, and Xfinity on it.
I have a 40 inch LCD TV in my den, but usually prefer the iPad.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
try more like an 3-4 boot time some boxes are less and on cable about 20-30 mins to get guide data back. Also hope that the boxes don't need to update right after power on.
Most of the boxes that have a 500 Watt listing on the box is the maximum combined power of the box with a television plugged into it. Those boxes generally go into standby when the TV is turned off.
This is the same way Light Dimmers are rated. A 600 Watt dimmer does not consume 600 Watts, but can handle a 600 Watt chandilier with 6 100 Watt bulbs.
Check the back of the box. Does it include a place to plug in the TV?
The truth shall set you free!
Verizon FIOS DVR stays fully awake when turned off, so that it can keep "recording" live TV just in case you want to turn it back on again. At least that's a function, worthwhile or not. It also keeps the display hardware hot to show a screensaver on the TV saying "Your FIOS box is off." Since this text keeps drifting around the screen, rather than allowing the display line to simply go dark, a TV left on by mistake (which would have shut itself off on lost input) also stays awake to keep the DVR company. I fully realize the DVR's never going to be completely dead, because it has to wake up when a timer needs processing; but that should be a very low power mode for any time not actively watching or recording.
The funny thing is that ever since Reagan and Thatcher launched a new form of right wing politics we live in an era where the "conservatives" are radicals who want to replace a working system with their utopian dream society, while the "socialists" or "liberals" are people who want to keep the tried and tested system with all or most of its government involvement in the economy.
Anyway, this particular problem could be solved in two ways:
1. Have the government determine standards and force companies to certify their products.
2. Have a private non-profit organization determine standards, encourage companies to certify their products, and name and shame the companies that don't do it. Consumer don't want to buy from brands that have a reputation for not caring about the environment.
So it's not completely impossible for the market to solve the problem. It's just unlikely to happen soon.
Did anybody actually *think* before writing this article?
A cable box drawing "500 watts" would be cherry-red hot.
The rating of "500 watts" on the back is for cable boxes that have an accessory AC outlet, and the rating means that you can plug in a TV or whatnot rated at up to 500 watts. The cable box itself draws a whole lot less, like 15 watts, even less for the newer ones.
Any kind of sleeping router would need to respond to incoming calls.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I have basic cable so I can plug right into my TV. However with digital TV being common why arn't more TV's handling it so you don't need the cable box.
My TV includes a digital tuner so I can plug my basic digital cable service directly into the TV using the coax cable coming out of the wall, no cable box necessary. These unencrypted channels include all the basic standard definition channels offered by my cable company not just the handful of local terrestrial broadcast channels.
I actually split the coax and have one output go directly into the TV and one into the cable box. The cable company's DVR only has two receivers, on rare occasions I have two shows recording and I switch the TV to the direct input (the TV's receiver) and watch a third show live.