Getting Off Stand by...

All the LEDs and other "displays" that light on when devices are in a 'standby' mode consume power, in addition to the device core itself. An article in the WSJ describes some interesting approaches towards solving this problem.

Switching Off Standby Mode Gadgets Save Energy, Cut Power to Snoozing Appliances.
It has been called "vampire power" or "phantom load," likened to the power-hungry HAL 9000 computer in Stanley Kubrick's movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey." The unblinking little red light on the television set is silently drawing energy from the grid, and studies show it can add 10% or more to a household energy bill. Now Spanish entrepreneurs claim to have invented a way to end a problem that has bedeviled energy regulators, environmentalists and appliance manufacturers. They have patented an algorithm that can detect when an appliance is in standby mode and automatically switch it off completely.

The standby-mode killer has yet to be proven commercially and must contend with other new products designed to tackle the same problem. But, despite some doubters, the Spanish inventors say theirs is the only product able to completely do away with a large, and growing, world-wide problem.

"We have a product on the table that will solve the standby problem definitively," says Jorge Juan García, a founder of Good for You, Good for the Planet, the Madrid-based company that invented the technology.

Created to help the world's couch potatoes turn the tube on and off without having to make the arduous 2-meter journey to the TV set, the standby feature has spread to virtually every appliance in the home and office. Microwave ovens, cellphone chargers, DVD players, computer monitors and printers all silently consume power when they aren't in use.

The cumulative result is huge. A study by the European Commission found that Europeans waste €7 billion ($9 billion) a year paying for appliances in standby mode, which account for about 10% of total energy use. The drain can be higher. A study by the University of California, Berkeley, found that such snoozing machines consume as much as 26% of electricity used in gadget-stuffed homes in California.

Machines on standby are responsible for about 1% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

Governments have tried advertising campaigns to coax their citizens into unplugging cellphone chargers and turning off their TV sets at night, to little effect. Many new devices, such as Nintendo's Wii game console, lack an off switch. Users must unplug the devices to stop them from consuming power.

Some governments are turning to regulation. California and the European Union have set limits on how much power appliances can consume in standby mode. The European Commission recently set a goal to cut this kind of consumption by at least 70% by 2020.

In Mr. García's system, a microprocessor cuts off power to the appliance automatically. When the appliance is reactivated by pressing a button, it goes back into standby mode. It doesn't have to go through its start-up sequence again.

Existing appliances can be plugged into a power strip containing Mr. García's standby-kill chip, which he provisionally calls "100% Off." Mr. García says he is talking to electronics manufacturers about incorporating it directly into their new devices.

Other companies have come up with products to address the problem. James Dunne, of ElectraTech Ltd. in the U.K., has developed a power strip he calls the Savasocket. The device "learns" the infrared signal from the TV remote and switches off the entire bank of plugs when the standby button on the remote is pressed. The Savasocket is to be introduced in the U.K. next year at a price of about £20 ($30).

"The interest in the product has been phenomenal," says Mr. Dunne, a civil engineer from the British city of Leeds. "I'm very happy with the orders that are coming in."

One Click Technologies Ltd., also based in the U.K., sells the £17 Intelliplug, which cuts power to computer peripherals such as printers, scanners and speakers when a personal computer is shut down.

But Mr. García says other products in the category either fail to cut power use completely, need a user to invest time setting them up or require human intervention to work.

Mr. García's product works for every device with a standby feature -- from microwave ovens to cellphone chargers or washing machines -- and not just TV sets with remote controls or home computers with peripherals. It controls each device individually, he says, meaning that a printer or scanner would shut down when idle, even if the PC to which it is attached is still being used.

NH Hoteles SA of Spain has been testing a prototype of Mr. García's gadget at some of the chain's 350 hotels in 22 countries. It hopes to install the device in its 50,000 rooms as part of a drive to cut energy use by 20% by 2012.

"We're very interested in this product and are seeing how we can implement it in the short or medium term," says Luis Ortega, the chain's director of environment and engineering. "That small saving, multiplied by 24 hours, 365 days a year, makes quite a big difference -- especially when you're talking about 50,000 television sets."

The Spanish subsidiary of advertising company Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide also has been testing Mr. García's standby-mode killer, and is considering combining it with software programs that turn off computers at night. "The thing works, there's no doubt about it," says Óscar Prats, chief executive of Bassat Ogilvy.

While Mr. García claims to have solved the problem of vampire power, some researchers caution that regulations will still be needed because many appliances -- such as security alarms -- need to be turned on all the time.

"Will it end the standby problem?" asks Alan Meier, a standby-power researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. "For some appliances, yes; for others, no."