57 Channels And...Still Switched On

Photo by dailyinvention

My old TV finally gave up at the tail end of last week. It's sobering to note that in these days of planned obsolescence in electronics 15 years is a good age for a telly. It started showing some wavy lines last year which have gradually got worse over the last 12 months, until last week when the picture became unwatchable.

I did briefly consider living without a TV completely. I've done it before, most recently last September when I first moved into this flat and had no working TV aerial. But those TV-less times have shown me that I'm not really that kind of person, while I admire others who do it.

So I picked up my new LCD TV on Friday, and it'll be interesting to see what the effect on my power consumption is between this TV and the old one. I never use 'standby' so the only power will be when it is switched on.

Or so I thought. I very rarely read the manual for electronics but I was flicking through this one when I noticed a small sentence buried on Page 17:

To power down the TV completely, unplug the power cord from the mains socket

In other words, even when you use the on/off switch on the side of the TV, it is still using power! How many of those who think they are doing good by not using 'standby' are still using power on a TV they're not watching?