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Jason Fitzpatrick is the Senior Smart Home Editor at How-To Geek. He has over a decade of experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at How-To Geek, Review Geek, LifeSavvy, and Lifehacker. Jason served as Lifehacker's Weekend Editor before he joined How-To Geek. Read more...
Unplugging electronic devices and appliances to save money seems like a proposition with an obvious outcome, but it’s actually much more nuanced than you might think. Here’s the inside scoop on when you will save money—and when you won’t.
Whether or not you’re going to save any money on your electric bill by unplugging a given device depends entirely on whether or not that device has what is known as a “phantom load.”
Some devices are binary. Either they are on and performing their function, consuming electricity in the process, or completely off with no power load.
Traditional incandescent light bulbs (and their “dumb” LED replacements) are like this. So are simple devices like basic space heaters. Either the heater is warming up the room, or it’s not.
But some devices consume electricity all the time, even when they don’t appear to be doing anything. Smart bulbs draw a tiny bit of power when they are off, because they need to stay “on”—at least at the circuit level—to receive commands. And if your space heater includes a thermostat to turn itself on and off automatically, it will draw power even when it appears to be off, too.
And some devices, like cable boxes or game consoles with fast-start modes, draw a substantial amount of power even when they appear to be turned off.
If you want the easy (but not necessarily the most time-efficient) way to solve the problem, here’s what to do. Unplug everything you don’t regularly use, leaving anything that has to stay plugged in for the safety and security of your home (such as your sump pump).
If you want a more nuanced approach where you’re not unplugging things with zero saving to show for it, you need to grab a watt meter and test how much power your devices draw when plugged in but turned off.
That’s how I figured out my media center setup was wasting around $30 a year. It’s also how I figured out that other devices were wasting nothing (or mere cents a year), and it wouldn’t be worth unplugging them.
If you're at all curious about the power usage of devices around your home, you need this device.
$33.98Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Does Unplugging Electronics and Appliances Actually Save Money? - How-To Geek
Join 425,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles.
By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Jason Fitzpatrick is the Senior Smart Home Editor at How-To Geek. He has over a decade of experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at How-To Geek, Review Geek, LifeSavvy, and Lifehacker. Jason served as Lifehacker's Weekend Editor before he joined How-To Geek. Read more...
Unplugging electronic devices and appliances to save money seems like a proposition with an obvious outcome, but it’s actually much more nuanced than you might think. Here’s the inside scoop on when you will save money—and when you won’t.
Whether or not you’re going to save any money on your electric bill by unplugging a given device depends entirely on whether or not that device has what is known as a “phantom load.”
Some devices are binary. Either they are on and performing their function, consuming electricity in the process, or completely off with no power load.
Traditional incandescent light bulbs (and their “dumb” LED replacements) are like this. So are simple devices like basic space heaters. Either the heater is warming up the room, or it’s not.
But some devices consume electricity all the time, even when they don’t appear to be doing anything. Smart bulbs draw a tiny bit of power when they are off, because they need to stay “on”—at least at the circuit level—to receive commands. And if your space heater includes a thermostat to turn itself on and off automatically, it will draw power even when it appears to be off, too.
And some devices, like cable boxes or game consoles with fast-start modes, draw a substantial amount of power even when they appear to be turned off.
If you want the easy (but not necessarily the most time-efficient) way to solve the problem, here’s what to do. Unplug everything you don’t regularly use, leaving anything that has to stay plugged in for the safety and security of your home (such as your sump pump).
If you want a more nuanced approach where you’re not unplugging things with zero saving to show for it, you need to grab a watt meter and test how much power your devices draw when plugged in but turned off.
That’s how I figured out my media center setup was wasting around $30 a year. It’s also how I figured out that other devices were wasting nothing (or mere cents a year), and it wouldn’t be worth unplugging them.
If you're at all curious about the power usage of devices around your home, you need this device.
$33.98
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