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from the resist-the-urge-to-get-amped-up dept.
According to the National Resource Defense Council, Americans waste up to $19 billion annually in electricity costs due to "vampire appliances," always-on digital devices in the home that suck power even when they are turned off.
But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor Massood Tabib-Azar and his team of engineers have come up with a way to produce microscopic electronic switches for appliances and devices that can grow and dissolve wires inside the circuitry that instantly connect and disconnect electrical flow. With this technology, consumer products such as smartphones and computer laptops could run at least twice as long on a single battery charge, and newer all-digital appliances such as televisions and video game consoles could be much more power efficient.
...
"Whenever they are off, they are not completely off, and whenever they are on, they may not be completely on," says Tabib-Azar, who also is a professor with the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative. "That uses battery life. It heats up the device, and it's not doing anything for you. It's completely wasted power."Tabib-Azar and his team have devised a new kind of switch for electronic circuits that uses solid electrolytes such as copper sulfide to literally grow a wire between two electrodes when an electrical current passes through them, turning the switch on. When you reverse the polarity of the electrical current, then the metallic wire between the electrodes breaks down -- leaving a gap between them -- and the switch is turned off. A third electrode is used to control this process of growing and breaking down the wire.
He did not get the memo--reducing vampire current is not what the Internet of Things is all about.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday October 28 2016, @04:20PM
You don't need to unplug things. If you want to really stop the "vampire" energy usage, you just use a simple power strip that you can get for $5. This has the bonus effect of giving you more outlets, since house-builders *still* haven't figured out that 2 outlets every 20 feet or whatever it is is never enough. They really should be putting in quad outlets (rather than double), and every 6 feet minimum, and every 3 feet in a kitchen. Until they do that, power strips are an absolute necessity. The switches on those might not be the very best quality, but usually they're just fine, and if one goes bad, you can get another strip for $5 so you might as well just stock up.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday October 29 2016, @02:05PM
The code actually requires outlets every 12 ft. That way, 6ft appliance cords can reach without an extension cord. 6ft cords also prevent you from reaching a non-GFI protected outlet from inside the bathroom.
As far as I can tell, legally, extension cords and power strips don't really exist. If you read the fine-print on the package for a power strip, you will note that it is for "temporary use only."
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 31 2016, @03:39PM
6ft cords also prevent you from reaching a non-GFI protected outlet from inside the bathroom.
Not a problem in my house. The entire second floor is wired through a single GFCI outlet in my bedroom, including all the outlets in both bedrooms, all the bedroom lights, and the bathroom lights and outlets. The GFCI breaker does pop from time to time, leaving me and my housemates in darkness.