I am curious about people’s opinion here to use smart plugs (zigbee based) mainly to save power of devices that would remain on standby during say the night when not being used (OLED TV, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, Sonos Soundbar, etc). And their downtime would mainly be based on time (say at night, so approx. 8 hours a day?).
Doing a bit of googling the standby of most of these devices individually seems quite low actually when in standby mode. And I have trouble finding the power consumption a smartplug (like the Innr SP 120) actually consumes just to be connected.
I’m honestly curious if it’s worth it. Looking at it not just from a financial perspective (getting the initial costs of buy the plugs out of it may not be viable), also simply from a perspective of not wanting to waste power. Just not sure if the smartplug may actually consume more power then the device(s) it’s trying to turn off.
No links to point to, but from prior research and personal testing, most zigbee plugs are probably well under 0.5w, probably closer to 0.1w.
Even assuming the higher 0.5w figure there would be operational savings for a lot devices, but it may take a very long time to recoup the cost of the plug.
Worth it? Personally, probably not for most devices. Automation is more about convenience for me and it’s hard to find a meaningful window to shut down anything in my household.
I indeed do not think the cost of the plug would be recouped. But simply not using energy when it’s not needed (ignoring the fact the plug also took energy to produce) would be my goal.
Some of the devices I checked use 0.1 in standby, others can be upto 0.8. So if a Zigbee device would use 0.5 itself all devices connected to it should use more then that in the time they are normally not used. If a zigbee device is 0.1 then it’s I am guessing quickly at least the case the plug itself doesn’t use more power then I am trying to save.
Also not sure if it’s wise to fully power-off some always on devices (like A Sonos soundbar).
You’re a better man than I. I probably worry too little about energy usage.
That is a very high end peak figure. Probably closer to the 0.1 for most instances. If you can use a single plug to shut off a power strip with multiple appliances, it might make more sense.
Still, I get back to the convenience aspect. I’d have little patience if faced with waiting for something to boot.
Dunno about zigbee from the top of my head but just been looking at bluetooth mesh and wondering the same.
The micro-controllers are often the same or similar in performance so radio alone bluetooth ble is approx x10 less energy.
Also when on wifi been wondering what effect other traffic has when computers and tvs are connected with broadcast traffic flying about whilst zigbee and the likes are likely just to have the control traffic and does that also reduce?
On a single device the difference really is minuscule but if you have quite a number it could be a consideration not really because of any huge cost but just to strive to be efficient.
Just a little side note that might have been missed.
Adding a smart plug might swap the standby power usage of connected devices for the power usage of just the plug, but it will also swap the normal power usage with a normal power usage + the power usage of the plug.
The normal power usage scenario will therefore be higher than before.
Worth also keeping in mind - Standby exists for a reason, it is not ONLY to allow us to be lazy.
Standby actually protects the electronics inside the devices. Every time that you apply power to a device - any device, for a fraction of a second it consumes roughly double - four times it’s rated wattage. It’s known as inrush current. As you can imagine this shortens the life of components on the circuit board. Standby significantly helps because for devices that will still be subjected to inrush current when you take them out of standby - the components are not cold, so they aren’t subjected to thermal shock.
The end result, is that switching stuff off at the mains may well be saving energy, but your device will fail a lot quicker and therefore end up landfill a lot quicker.
I think I do have that part ‘under control’. The house is rather ‘self aware’ what it should do in what situation. Like turning devices on just before people wake or have a natural reason to use it. With things like a ‘nightmode’ that turns on when we go to bed and turns off about 15 minutes before people wake based on workdays, holidays, etc. My guess is that it won’t hinder us from a convenience aspect.
Yeah, this is what I am trying to figure. If the overall usage would even be worse and cause a higher power use. From what I’m getting in feedback from everyone here. I have a feeling it may be a noble idea, but in practice one may actually use more power then less.
This also crossed my mind. To make this work one plug should turn off quite a few devices. But some of these aren’t really designed to be turned off. Esp. in my case looking at Sonos devices. I actually found the power-use of the Sonos Arc soundbar in standby mode quite high or how I have a Sonos Port connected just to play vinyl (so you could say, just turn it on if the record player starts), but Sonos devices aren’t keen on being kicked off the grid I’ve noticed. And that’s even besides from some devices really not enjoying getting that peek power you described. So may end up with being able to turn off one or two more ‘primitive’ devices.
A bluetooth mesh? I didn’t even know that existed! I was thinking Zigbee as I’ve build quite a reliable Zigbee Mesh (two actually… thnx Hue hub for not being compatible with the rest…). Bluetooth I didn’t consider as my Home Assistant physically resides on the 2nd floor and going two floors down I worry about the range. But you can build a mesh with bluetooth also?
Its not very good for few sparse installs as the max distance is pretty poor, seems mainly for sensors but is very low power focused.
If you have a dense enough install so that the mesh is avail then it works great supposedly.
Zigbee sort of became the CSA and they are now pushing Build With Matter | Smart Home Device Solution - CSA-IOT so yeah its all confusing but bluetooth doesn’t need special radio just BLE compatible as far as I know, but haven’t done much yet.
Going back to saving power and this is a question as often latency is due to the polling rate of the devices coming out of sleep to connect.
The esphome-api is very low latency and does this have effect on power as haven’t seen any figure for it and would be interested.
Bit off topic, but it does sound very interesting. Not sure how -with off the self devices- this is something you can easily build out yourself? At the moment I use very little bluetooth devices (some flic buttons - their range is amazing so perhaps they use this already, and yesterday got some switchbot items in). The switchbot stuff made it very clear the range is to limited for my house as it is atm.
For Zigbee I know matter is coming, but I find it very reliable. Using zigbee2mqtt for devices from Hue to Aqara. Most Hue stuff is however still on their own hub. Which is annoying Hue limiting their own zigbee network. Matter hopefully stops companies putting such limitations to their own brand. Low energy networks with mesh is prob the best future for iot devices. Esp to also conserve energy yet automate the crap out of everything
(Side note why I never moved all hue devices away from their own hub: I tinker to much on HA and the wife and kids like the option to always turn imortant lights on and off )