Power Genie - No More ‘Ghost Who Pollutes’
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 10.31.05
A good number of TH respondents commenting on their green lifestyles mentioned that they turn electrical appliances off at the wall, thus reducing the infamous ‘Phantom’ load of standby energy. According to the makers of the Power Genie, if all of Australia followed this example, then we‘d save 12% of our electricity usage, the equivalent of $500 million AUD and 5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Annually! But let’s face it, not everyone is as dedicated as TH readers. So the Power Genie is not a behavioural, but a technological solution. Place it in the correct configuration and it will turn off all connected appliances, simply by turning off one main appliance. Say you have a TV, DVD player, stereo and lamp all in one room. Using the Power Genie you’d only need to switch off the lamp on leaving the room and everything else would shut down too. No more crawling under furniture to find power sockets. No more standby lights blinking eerily in a darkened room. (Would work for office settings too. In an energy exercise, a government department employed someone to make sure all the equipment was off, in the whole 13 floors, not merely on standby. Result? An energy saving of 16% was realised.) ::Power Genie, via The New Inventors
So does anyone know when these will be available outside of Australia??? I love it!
It exists already. YMMV depending on how much current the control device uses.
Get it from Sears, the Crasftsman Autoswitch.
Which is great if you feel like resetting the clock on all your equipment (VCRs, etc) every day.
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Writers note: Not according to the blurb on their website. Clock function is retained even when shut down. WM.
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The craftsman autoswitch was mentioned. I have used it and it works fine, but another device that works as well if not better is the BitsLimited SmartStrip which not only provides the functionality of a 'control' outlet to switch attached devices but will switch 3 or 4 outlets at once. It also is a surge protector and has 4 additional non-switched outlets.
A good application of the bitslimited strip is that you can do things like plug a computer monitor into the control outlet and set the DPMS setting to put the monitor to power saving mode. Thus whenever you go away from the computer and your screen saver (really DPMS) activates, your speakers, desk lamps, etc will power off automatically.. Set automatic standby or hibernation shortly after your monitor powers down and you have a much better power bill on your office.
Another good application is in switching stereo equipment and the like off completely. If you have a moderate rack of stereo gear, a lot of devices are alive and waiting for you to "turn them on" -- ironic, but true -- plug your receiver or TV into the control outlet and turn it on first.
How does the SmartStrip from BitsLimited compare to the one from Fellowes (http://www.zipstorage.com/fe10ousmsupo1.html)?