I was up very early. I wasn’t sleeping well, anyways.
Things on my mind.
I walked around the the house. There are so many indicator lights. Little tiny pindots in the dark:
Indicating the dishwasher is done. The TVs are off. The dish network is recording something. The refrigerator is operating properly. The dryer is finished and another saying the clothes are indeed dry. The gate alarm is set. The door alarm is set. The thermostat. The clock on the stove.
Many many LCD plugs. The computer is on stand by. My laptop is charging. My charging bank is charging. All the phones and devices charging.
The dang air fresheners.
How much(or little) electricity do these things use? Mine x a gazillion other peoples homes?
Jeez, that’s mind boggling.
Idling electronics (plugged in, active to be immediately turned on with a remote, illuminating a small indicator LED, etc.) use about 1-2 Watts. For comparison, a 60-Watt-equivalent LED light bulb uses 13 watts, and an old-school night light bulb uses about 4 watts.
Our new window AC came with easy-reading sized lit numbers showing what temperature it’s been set at. But it’s also got a bunch of settings that can only be reached with its remote. One of them is turning off the indicator lights, including the oversized numbers.
Our local power provider has “Challenge” days, where they compare your power usage to “similar” homes.
It’s stupid, but not as stupid has the tips they suggested. One of them was charging your personal electronics during off-peak.
Right.
One minute of my A/C running equals an entire month of my electronics charging (maybe more).
When we were first introduced to individual, off-grid solar power, we were cautioned to turn most of those idle electricity hogs (piglets, really) to OFF. Each watt from solar is pretty hard-won, and you truly don’t need all those bitty lights everywhere.
If you are up at night, walking the floor with a migraine, those little lights become painful drills that bore into your brain through your eyeballs.