Tories Want To Kill Off 'Stand-By' Buttons September 17, 2007
Read more Gadgets , Gizmodo UK , HDTV , Home Entertainment , Peripherals , TV , Technology
This week's green pledges being made by politicians comes from the Tories, which are planning to get rid of the evil, energy-sucking ‘stand-by’ buttons on many of your favourite consumer electronics toys like DVD players, TVs, consoles etc, etc.
In it’s 500-page ‘Quality of Life’ report, the Tories said that stand-by power must be shut down to help prevent global warming. And forget relying on us humans to do it too. According to the report:
“All new electrical items will require a functionality that switches them off after a specified period, rather than remaining on standby.”
Dixons already tried something similar back in June by calling on its manufacturers to get greener by getting rid of stand-by mode. It got the cold shoulder from many for its trouble.
Does this latest call spell the end for the stand-by button and is it practical? -Martin Lynch
Editor | Martin Lynch
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... and so they should. it really annoys me how people are too lazy to walk over to an appliance to turn it on... either that or devise some remote control for power points to switch em on and off without massive loss in power...
i for one know (through experience) that if i turn off my DVD player or dishwasher they break within a few weeks... def a design fault!
If it saves on power it can't be a bad thing, but the pressure has to be on manufacturers to build more robust devices to support this.
From bitter experience I too have found powering down devices rather than using standby shortens their lifespan, after 3 trips to the repair shop to sort the PSU on my Panasonic PVR.
Also, to record anything on digital via the TV I have to leave this on standby as my recorder is analogue and needs the TVs digital tuner. This whole wave of 'green' statements from the Tory camp (ban Plasma's etc) reeks of tokenism. Shouldn't they be tackling more important issues like crime & anti-social behaviour, legislation and regulation of the Internet, taxation, runaway house price inflation, etc.
Can't we just pay to offset any bad carbon footprints we tread by leaving appliances on stand by?
I'm sure I read somewhere that we can buy back the ozone layer by paying more in taxes. At least, that's what they're imposing on the transport industry, so it MUST work surely?
If standby disappears, I'll probably just end up leaving things switched on constantly - mainly to prove the point that simply removing a standby button has no useful effect!
Also, where does this stop... I've NEVER switched my laptops off.... they go to sleep... it's far too impractical to close everything and re-open it all later (and expect to be able to find where I was!) - it might be a better use of energy shutting them down completely, but it's not a better use of my time which I'm sure is more expensive.
"All new electrical items will require a functionality that switches them off after a specified period, rather than remaining on standby"
Will this include the servers running the tory webshite ?
I too would just the leave the appliance switched on if the standby option were removed. The government might do better addressing pilot lights on boilers being left on rather than getting distracted by a minor wastage of power on a matter they know little about. There are much greater power wasters about and the government itself with its needless travel to meetings is one of the worst. Perhaps, instead, they should insist that the electronic designers make sure that standby really does cut power consumption to a trickle; it's not a difficult task.
500 page report? I hope they haven't printed that out.
this is stupid, why dont they start by making sure all the lights in their offices are turned off at night? and then turn attention to the other big business lights that burn through the night?
this is stupid, why dont they start by making sure all the lights in their offices are turned off at night? and then turn attention to the other big business lights that burn through the night?
Anyone who would leave appliances on over getting off their arses and just turning them off are lazy bastards. Seriously, have we really turned into that much of a self centred species that you'll knowingly leave your equipment on and pay more on your bill and harm the environment just because you cant wait 5 minutes for a PC to boot up or work 10 ft and switch the TV off. Ive never been more embarressed of the human race than when i read those comments.
Big companies have their part to play of course but passing the buck is pretty shameful.
Although turning things off may help to reduce peoples "carbon footprint", it will in no way cancel it out or reverse it. The only thing that'll do that is planting more plantlife.
Totally wrong-headed government thinking and usual lack of technical knowledge.
I'm sure if designed properly standby currents can be reduced to nearly zero. The manufactures just need a prod in the right direction. Proper labelling and a bit of consumer education is all that's needed.
Has anyone actually ever tested how much electricity leaving something, like a tv or computer, uses? And then comparing that with the time spend and the amount of electricity is used then just watching the TV.
Thanks
and here http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/seriesfour/index.shtml
Indeed they already designed transistors that can keep a device on standby using really next to no power, less than 1 milliamp, it's just a few pennies more expensive and the chinese manufacturers need to get a simple schematic perhaps, but there's really no need to outlaw the concept, after all the idea behind standby is also to save energy from having the device full on all the time.
Not that the tories will have any say any time soon of course.