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TV Manufacturers Accused of Gaming Energy Usage Tests (cbslocal.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the game-mode dept.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has issued a new report accusing Samsung, LG and Vizio of "misleading consumers and regulators about how much energy high-definition screens devour, alleging that the televisions were designed to perform more efficiently during government testing than in ordinary use." The report "estimates that the collective electricity bills during a decade of watching the high-definition TVs will be $1.2 billion higher than the energy ratings imply," and that "the higher energy usage generates an additional 5 million metric tons of carbon pollution." CBS Local reports: The findings are based on an analysis of high-definition TVs with screens spanning at least 55 inches made in 2015 and 2016. The estimates on electricity costs are based on high definition TVs with screens 32 inches and larger. The study concluded that Samsung and LG have gamed the system during government testing in an effort to get better scores on the "Energy Star" yellow labels that appear on the sets in stores. Those scores often influence the buying decisions of consumers looking to save money on their utility bills. The report said Samsung and LG did not break any laws in their manipulation of the tests, but rather exploited weaknesses in the Department of Energy's system to measure electricity usage. The Samsung and LG sets have a dimming feature that turns off the screens' backlight during part of the 10-minute video clip used in government tests. But that does not typically happen when the sets are being used in homes to watch sports, comedies, dramas and news programming. The analysis also found that Samsung, LG and Vizio disable energy-saving features in their TVs when consumers change the factory setting on the picture, a common practice. The energy-saving feature is turned off, with little or no warning on the screen, sometimes doubling the amount of electricity consumed, according to the NRDC report.

21 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Thats terrible by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't afford the extra 75 cents this year. I was counting on the manufacturers numbers to make my budget numbers. I guess I will just need to skip a meal. Damn you, LG!

    1. Re:Thats terrible by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm sure a horde of lawyers would love to charge $50 for each $0.75 refund check cut in their class action.

      --
      My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    2. Re:Thats terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, let's send the message to large corporations that fraud is a-ok and we aren't even going to bother pretending to punish them any more. There's no way that could possibly lead to further problems down the road.!

    3. Re:Thats terrible by aix+tom · · Score: 2

      As much as I dislike large corporations, the problem as I see it is slightly different here.

      Of course when someone "gives you grades on some arbitrary test that has nothing to do with reality whatsoever", be it energy consumption, emission volumes or school grades, you optimize your behaviour to get as high as possible marks on those arbitrary test.

      And then you get televisions, cars, employees, etc.. that all scored great on some arbitrary test, but those test don't really tell you anything about how they perform in the real world. We are just too obsessed by labels, certificates and diplomas these days.

  2. No end... by XSportSeeker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Diesel, energy usage... this really has no end, right?
    You start wondering if your home appliances, electronics and whatnot are really all that efficient, or if in fact it's just all the testing procedures that are rigged instead.

    1. Re:No end... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I has Engineer degree...
      I actually am an Engineer, a Test Engineer. An Experimental Physics Test Engineer. Sometimes the Physics Folks get a little too enamored of the Physics, without paying attention to the lowly Engineer tugging at their sleeve and trying to get across the point that something unintended is about to explode...

      In my experience, such Energy Usage Tests are extremely conservative. The Vizio LED Monitor that I'm looking at right now, as stated in the manual, consumes 65 Watts. In reality, and this does vary, it's more like ~21 Watts. The 24" Polaroid Monitor on my boat that has a 12VDC Brick, (That is precisely why I bought it...), consumes at average lighting levels, only 9 Watts off the Ship's Batteries. The manual says 27.

      I've gone around and measured the Energy Usage of just about everything in my house and boat, and consistently, with the exception of the Kettles and one space heater, they use substantially less electricity than advertised. Even this MacBook Air, whose sucking goes all over the place, averages out to about 3 Watts. Playing a Flash video with sound turned all the way up, it goes to 7 Watts. Turn off the Wifi, and just type away in near darkness... 2.1 Watts. Apple was very conservative in estimating battery life; I've gone 14 hours on one charge, typing away like mad until dawn. Apple says I should expect 9.

      But there is one area that concerns none of us here except me maybe, and that is Power Factor. I just happen to have an ancient HP Vector Voltmeter. (A Vector Voltmeter, very simply, compares Phase of two otherwise identical sinusoidal signals, and displays the Phase Difference on a meter.) The absolute values that the VV displays isn't of any real interest to me, as long as a calibrated Resistive source, like a Tea Kettle, centers the meter. Historically, the VV shows how Inductive a load is, like in a refrigerator compressor. It was rare to come across Capacitive loads, except maybe Cyclotrons. But increasingly now, these newfangled switching power supplies do show _Capacitive_ Reactance. That is, they draw more "Imaginary" Capacitive Reactive Watts than Resistive. We don't care, because we pay for Real Watts. But Power Companies, who rely on Energy Usage Tests to forecast demand and allow for it, do care. It gets _very_ complicated to put down in writing just how much Power a device uses under all circumstances, while a VV dances away. So, to make it easy for everyone, just state the worst-case scenario- Fold worst-case Reactance into the measured Resistive load, add a fudge factor, and state that this Vizio consumes 65 Watts. Plan around this accordingly. (I'm not getting any further into this without getting very tiresome indeed; just Google "Power Factor".)
      If everybody plays by the same rules, we have some semblance of Reality, with "Imaginary" Tendrils.

      I don't know the Realities of this Case; I would need to take randomly chosen victims into my Underground Lair and subject them to the Vector Voltmeter, and once the acrid smoke clears, make some calculations. But with the premise of always underpromise and overdeliver for Government Certification, or face the Consequences, "Gaming" Energy Usage Tests makes no sense here. Anybody buying a 55" TV to watch mostly commercials simply doesn't care.

      I call... "Doubtful".

    2. Re:No end... by amorsen · · Score: 2

      But Power Companies, who rely on Energy Usage Tests to forecast demand and allow for it, do care.

      You imply that power companies try to guess which items people buy, and how much they use them, and then use the Energy Usage Tests to figure out aggregate demand. This sounds highly improbable.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    3. Re:No end... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That is _exactly_ what the Utilities do. (This also goes for, at least in California, Water...)
      Very few people want new Power Plants. They are expensive, troublesome, and take many years to design and construct. One of the points about the "Energy Star" program is to get some insight into future purchasing trends, which helps to forecast aggregate Electricity Demand. Take the simple Light Bulb. I've been testing a bunch of the new LED Lamps. Now any individual LED Lamp that uses ~12% of the Equivalent Incandescent Electricity doesn't make much of a difference, but multiply that reduction by the billions of Lamps now in use...
      And that is _exactly_ why Power Companies underwrite the purchase of LED lamps to the point that they are now practically giving them away. My home and boat are now all LED. (Yes, some of the Tech sucks, and I've figured out a way to knock another couple of percentage points off...) To the Power Companies, this is cheaper and far less bother than planning for and building new Power Plants. Lighting, (Residential and Industrial/Commercial), alone used ~11% of US Electrical Demand in 1995.
      I should put this Disclaimer out now- I worked for the DOE, but I've been Consulting on and off for both PG&E and WAPA for three decades. In the early Eighties, PG&E instrumented my house and started testing my usage. I got a few goodies to keep.
      In that time, I've gone from ~15KWH a day to ~3.2. I am an extreme case; I live alone and am quite willing to put up with all sorts of nonsense, like the time the guy checking for heat losses to the attic put his leg through the plasterboard ceiling, next to the furnace. I took a photograph...

      Now, back to LED Lighting. It takes a fair amount of Electricity to make the damn things, and when folded into the net Electrical Usage until thrown away, puts a dent into it. But note very carefully here- Most of these Lamps are made in China, using Chinese Electricity. In the last two decades, the demand for Per-Capita Electricity in the US has actually dropped, and is approaching European metrics. (There is a pun in there...)
      This has been endlessly studied, and in fact there is a whole Country being experimented on now- Norway. Why is this? Norway has by far the highest percentage of Electrical and Hybrid Automobiles now, with plans in place to go all-Electric as soon as practicable. This means that Norway has to plan for the very long term just how much Electrical Demand there will be, and plan accordingly. Norway, as of now is a net Exporter of Electricity, most of it Hydroelectric in origin:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway
      Norway _does_ Import Electricity at times when it makes cents. (Sorry, another pun...) On a per-capita basis, Norwegians use more Electricity than any other significant country, because Norwegian Winters are long and cold. But because of careful planning, their Electrical rates are among the lowest of any Industrialized Country. It balances out.

      I can understand that some of the Libertarian Bent can smell Conspiracy here, and for just this once, they are right. There actually is a World-Wide Conspiracy, that dates far before the Global Warming thing; in fact it dates back to the Nixon era, and Nixon himself. (Only Nixon could go to China...)
      It starts with a Lightbulb, and then a Household, and then Communities, and then Countries, and then Continents, and then the World, all of the First, Second, and very significantly, Third Worlds, where Electrical Lighting is just now becoming a Thing.
      Those who have Hydroelectric Power, even with the Ecological devastation that it entails, are sitting pretty. Instead of depending on the whims of a manipulated Fossil Fuel Market, they are subject to the whims of Weather and, (Wake up there, you in the third row...), Climate.
      This Conspiracy, is for want of a better phrase, the Anti-Brady-Bunch Conspiracy. One brightly lit House, six kids, and two vehicles that get less than 10MPG are not a sustainable Model for the whole World. There just i

  3. Even bad its good by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Compared to the plasmas, rear projection screens, and even good old fasioned CRTs over the last dozen years the new LED units are positively energy sippers.

    Even so, update the tests and fix the stickers; consumers should know what they are buying.

    Although I do take exception to the idea that the auto dimming during the test is 'unrealistic' -- yeah its true there isn't a minute of blackness during the average superbowl. But I can't tell you how often a movie has ended, or someone walked away from the HTPC, or something and its gone to sleep. Some of the devices go idle/sleep/off the TV basically shuts the screen off. Others it goes to this blue no-signal screen which it doesn't seem to detect as idle, and will sit there glowing blue nothing for hours... so yeah... testing what the screen does when its not being used SHOULD be part of the testing.

    1. Re:Even bad its good by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      But I can't tell you how often a movie has ended, or someone walked away from the HTPC, or something and its gone to sleep

      Microsoft probably can. ;)

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:Even bad its good by Hadlock · · Score: 2

      Yep, my 40" Samsung LED backlit TV is rated at 40W. To give you an idea of how much energy that is, the Samsung soundbar + subwoofer is rated at 180W. That's 4x more energy consumed (at peak) by the barely-midrange soundsystem than the display. It's 8x more than my 5W rated Amazon Fire TV (streaming media device),
       
      but, running my electric oven for 20 min to make my pizza uses more power than my TV, Speakers and streaming media device do in a month.
       
      Shrug. There are bigger, better fights to pick than LED backlit TVs.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    3. Re:Even bad its good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your sound bar would be only using max 20 to 30 Watts, Peak is a useless measure because it is a measure the power the sound bar can pump out for a moment, if you try to drive it hard continuously it will just crap it self and you will very soon find yourself pushing the volume down to a level it can actually handle.

  4. What's our take away on this supposed to be? by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

    What's our take away on this supposed to be?

    (A) These evil scoundrels are cheating on the government tests

    (B) The people who are designing the government tests epically suck at their jobs, should be fired, and have competent people hired in their places

    I'm going to have to vote "B" here, folks.

    1. Re:What's our take away on this supposed to be? by tlambert · · Score: 2

      It's not that they suck at their jobs. Due to "fairness, transparency and accountability" requirements any testing methodology they come up with has to be fully documented and given to the manufacturers ahead of time. Manufacturers being the scum-sucking bastards that they are will, of course, run all these tests in their own labs ahead of time and tweak the crap out of things so they come out on top.

      Sorry, but the tests are supposed to be "representative of normal usage".

      Even if they document the tests, if they can be gamed in a test representative of "normal usage", then the same gaming will kick in on actual "normal usage", and so the test will not have been gamed.

      You can have them be shitty at designing tests, or you can have them being shitty at determining what constitutes "normal usage", but it's not possible to game something that doesn't have a variance between expected use and actual use.

      The manufacturers are exploiting a variance that should not be there in a correctly designed testing scenario, because the variance would not be there in actual usage.

    2. Re:What's our take away on this supposed to be? by Tailhook · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm going to have to vote "B" here, folks.

      Correct answer. Energy Star certified a gasoline powered alarm clock in 2010. It's pointless pencil whipping operation; another collection of government lawyers sopping up a grand living from government teats.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  5. So they studied for the test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unless they did some Volkswagen-esque cheat the detected that a test was running and changed settings on the fly, then all they were doing was optimizing for the test, which is hardly fraud. They can't stop a consumer for switching to ultra-bright or from watching continuous flashing Pokemon episodes. It is impossible to come up with a "standardized" test that perfectly replicates "real world" conditions. My real world conditions are different than yours. All you can do is come up with some standardized test that is hopefully representative. If the government failed, then change the test.

  6. My Samsung TV has this setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The setting on my Samsung TV is called "Motion Lighting". It dims the screen when the image is perfectly still for more than a few seconds. It was, of course, one of the first things I disabled since it's absolute bullshit for normal use; it doesn't kick in for 99% of content, and when it does it's extremely disruptive, there's no reason static images should suddenly dim out of nowhere. I Googled it at that time (three months ago) and it seemed to be common knowledge that it was added to circumvent energy efficiency tests.

    1. Re:My Samsung TV has this setting by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Sure; but that's a valuable feature.

  7. Coincidence? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    The difference between tests and actual is highest when depicting VW's on the screen.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  8. TIL by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    So today I learnt that manufacturers think that consumers give enough of a crap about the energy rating of a TV that the companies need to game the system.

    Just another example of companies completely detached from their user base.

  9. How else are you going to fight fascist economics? by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

    I can't say that I blame any private industry for trying to evade the capricious regulations fomented by fascist economics. Show me a single regulator that has an advanced degree in engineering and who has put it to actual use.