Bye Bye Standby - power saving device
Coolest Gadgets mentions the new Bye Bye Standby device. It seems neat on the surface, cut power to devices even when they’re in standby mode. I know things like televisions can still suck down a bit of power even when turned off, well…in aggregate anyway.
One thing that strikes me about the device, however, is what hoops you’d have to jump through if you use surge suppressors. I have my television, my Wii, my DVD player and my cable DVR hooked up to a single power strip. That plugs into the wall. If I were to use Bye Bye Standby between the power strip and the wall, then everything would be shut off. Even my DVR. That’s not what I want, the DVR needs to stay running in the event that a scheduled recording kicks off sometime. That means splitting up my power so I have one strip of devices that are okay to kill via Bye Bye Standby and another strip of devices that won’t go through the device. Not a huge deal, just something to keep in mind. It would be cool if they’d create a power strip where each plug has a configurable switch setting that would allow you do indicate if the device needs to remain powered or not. Then kill the power to the remaining devices when you’re not watching TV.
