To be fair, cable boxes aren’t whirring away, raising your electricity bill, for no reason. The only way to actually stop these set-top boxes from draining energy and raising your electric bill is to yank the plug out of the wall–cathartic, maybe, but not very intuitive.
Even odder, most American boxes don’t even have an actual “off” button–pressing the button labeled “off” will merely dim the clock in many cases. There could be a “stand-by” or “sleep” mode, often seen in some set-top boxes in Europe, that greatly reduce energy use when the box is inactive. The thing is, there are all kinds of options available to manufacturers that can reduce the energy use of these boxes. Except when you’re not using a computer, you shut it down (at least, we hope you do). They house energy-sucking hard drives, modern processors, HD video cards, and all kinds of other components you’d find in a regular computer. How could that little innocent cable box that provides so many hours of Monk reruns actually use more energy than a giant refrigerator? The problem is that modern DVRs and other set-top boxes aren’t regular one-function appliances they’re just specialized computers, with a different exterior. We’ve put together a list of the best and worst existing set-top boxes, so you can at least know what you’re getting.įirst, some background. These ridiculously energy-inefficient boxes, typically provided by your cable company, have received little scrutiny until now, which means the cable companies have had little reason to embrace readily available methods to decrease their energy use. A recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) made headlines when it revealed that the biggest energy drain in your house likely isn’t the fridge, air conditioner, or heater–it is, unbelievably, the TV set-top box.
0 kommentar(er)
