There's now a whole industry devoted to making it slightly easier to turn off all our gadgets at once so we don't waste energy via the dreaded standby function, as countless articles have recently told you. There was even one featured on Dragon's Den as a revolutionary product. You'd be forgiven for being confused by what these fancy boxes do, but it's really very simple - they switch stuff off. Of course, you could always avoid putting appliances on standby altogether, or support a ban on making gadgets standby switches in the first place. But failing that, here's hippyshopper's quick roundup of the top 5 standby stopping products.
Bye Bye standby from Domia Lite, which we reviewed in March, is available at Ethical Superstore for 19.99. The 'fun' of this one is that it comes with a remote that works at a range of 30m, so you can still maintain a couch potato lifestyle while saving the planet. Click the buttons corresponding to your PC, TV and so on, and off they go at once. Its manufacturers say that the gadget saves a family around £37 a year, and many more tonnes of C02 to boot.
The Intellipanel and Intelliplug from One Click both follow the same principles, and are incredibly simple to use. The plug costs a modest £16.95 and is useful for PCs, as it uses a 'master/slave' model that
automatically switches off your PC's peripherals (monitor, speakers, printer etc) when you're done with using its brain. Great for those hasty office exists...the panel works in exactly the same way, but with more sockets, and costs £29.95
But my best buy would be the Auto Switch-Off extension lead from EcoElectricals is also a nice simple gadget, and I've got one sitting under my desk right now. In exactly the same was as the intellipanel, you switch off the appliance plugged into the "Master Socket", then the remaining 6 slave sockets are powered off. It's a bit cheaper than the Intellipanel too, at £16.95. There's a more detailed review of it here.
The SMJ Energy Saving Plug Adapter is a new kid on the block and is one of the cheapest at £9.99. Like Bye Bye Standby, it cuts off power at the mains via a remote control handset. We'll be interested to see how the cheaper model compares with its rivals when it gets on to the market.
Finally, a quick reminder of why we do need to say goodbye to standby:
* Stereos on standby cost £290m and produce 1.6 million tonnes of CO2
* VCRs and DVD cost £194m and produce 1.06 million tonnes of CO2
* TVs on standby cost £88m and produce 480,000 tonnes of CO2
So whether it's a case of getting off your backside and pressing the off-switch or investing in a fancy gadget, it's a worthwhile move.
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Are these available in the U.S and if so where?
I'm not sure what the situation is outside the UK at the moment, but I'll have a look into US versions and get back to you!
This looks like a great little gadget, last week, I saw something along that same sort of lines..
which will help us all turn our lights off more often.
It is called the Do your bit switch and is a new light switch that senses when to turn your lights on when you're in the room, and more importantly, turns it off when you're not. There is no complex installation just replace your current light switch and the sensor in the light switch does the rest, including only coming on when dark.
Unfortunately it doesn’t have an over ride switch, so best in places like your hallway, kitchen or garage.
I’ve bought one and it really does help.
www.doyourbitswitch.com