You could save yourself cents per year!
They don’t actually say how much power a charger uses on standby, and make an unsubstantiated claim that they “wear out” due to “voltage fluctuations”. Sure thing.
Absolutely pointless article.
Is it OK to leave device chargers plugged in all the time? An expert explains
Submitted 4 weeks ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
taladar@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I would argue that you are much more likely to break the cable physically by constant unplugging and replugging.
IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
You could save yourself cents per year!
That’s pretty much it. Maybe even tens of cents. In pre-USB era that actually made sense, Nokia chargers with a barrel jack (and other that era wall-warts) consumed even several watts on idle but (assuming a good quality) modern USB-bricks are way more efficient. They still consume a non-zero amount of power when plugged in but you’re not going to see that on your power bill. You’ll waste far mor energy if you forget your bathroom lights on overnight, even with LED bulbs.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 weeks ago
It doesn't completely generalize that way. I have an old stereo which uses like 7W on standby. And an old pair or computer speakers which don't really care if I press the button to turn them off. I mean that's not the power brick, but the device after that, so a bit out of scope for this article. But if I weren't unplugging them... 10W is 26€ a year and not just a few cents.
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Key thing here being that they’re old…there are limits to how much power electrical equipment is allowed to consume in standby mode (at least in the EU) today, it’s not allowed to consume more than 0.5W in standby mode.
Goretantath@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Tbh, you are supposed to ALSO unplug EVERYTHING else you arent using to actually start saving money.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 weeks ago
Tl;dr: Consider unplugging them, they all consume some standby power and that adds up. Also they wear out.
Though: I've never noticed any of the 24/7 devices I own wear out, I think that might be a myth?
PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I have a whole bunch plugged in constantly for various synth nonsense. Running off solar, I thought it would be worth seeing how much of a difference it makes turning everything off at night, and basically it wasn’t worth the effort. It’s like a percentage point on top of the things like my fridge that run constantly, and is way less than using my toaster once a week. That said, if you’re on mains, it’s probably a worthy consideration if a lot of people were to do it, but it’s also probably comparable to using ChatGPT once a day or something
Enkers@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Cool cool cool. I’ll just continue not using chatgpt and we’ll call it a wash.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 4 weeks ago
The article is very light on details. There are better articles with some real numbers.
Chargers for a phone draw 0.1W roughly. That’s 0.9 kWh per year, and with a price of €0.35/kWh would be €0.32 / year / charger you leave plugged in. That’s not even a rounding error compared to what my heat pump uses.
Devices with an indicator light barely use anything more. The ones with a display or clock do use more power, usually a few watt, what then comes down to maybe €10 / device / year using napkin math.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
USB develops rapidly. My fleet of chargers always went outdated well before they went old.
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I have a drawer full of them that aren’t useful because half an amp isn’t enough to charge anything anymore.
HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
I mean, transistors and ICs do degrade over time, hovewer, out of all the power supplies I’ve repaired, the vast majority had dead caps, and those kinda tend to dry out with time regardless of whether they’re in use. So, kinda negligible, just like the power consumption in standby.
Nomad@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
Nobody considers the risk of them going up in flames at night. They have a temp trip safety, but there is still some risk left. Especially for cheap Chinese power blocks.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Wouldn’t temperature be much more of a problem while charging and not while the charger is unplugged from the device it is supposed to charge?
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
You can leave away the “cheap Chinese”. I have tried to find some of high quality once, and that was a super hard task. They are all the same as the cheap Chinese, whether it’s written somewhere or not.
truthfultemporarily@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
The capacitors have a limited lifetime.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Maybe but is that lifetime limited by on/off cycles or by wall time?
Buffalox@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
In EU they are not allowed to consume more than 0.5 Watt. And this regulation has been in force since 2008.
Since mostly everybody design for that, I expect this norm also benefit other countries. So this is not really an issue, unless you are in a country without such regulation, and you buy some cheap off brand charger.…europa.eu/…/standby-networked-standby-and-mode_e…
Since the standby power is so low, the wear is most likely insignificant too.
Having an idle unit that uses 0.5 Watt on constantly for a month, consumes about 1/3 kWh, but since this regulation has been in force since 2008, I suspect idle is improved further for most devices. 0.5 is a maximum allowed value, and most would prefer to stay below that to not get into trouble.timroerstroem@feddit.dk 4 weeks ago
The Brussels effect in action.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 4 weeks ago
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I unplug the switching power supplies when I’m not using them because I don’t want to listen to the RFI that they produce.
fullsquare@awful.systems 4 weeks ago
old power supplies used transformers, which when not loaded behave like inductors, and this causes reactive current to flow. not a problem for the last 15+ years because everything uses switching mode power supplies now
tal@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
But it is particularly concerning for cheap, uncertified chargers. These often lack appropriate levels of protection and can be a fire hazard.
I mean, you could hypothetically have an unsafe charger that plugs into wall power, but I don’t think that that’s specific to chargers. Any electrical device that plugs into wall power could hypothetically be unsafe.
In the case of chargers, the power supply is external to the device being powered and uses a standard interface, so it’s easy to examine and replace. I think that the only thing that comes close are external, semi-standardized power supplies with barrel plugs. So if you want to make sure that you have, say, all UL-marked chargers (in the US; a CE mark isn’t really the same thing in the EU but is the closest analog that I’m aware of) you can do that fairly easily. But I’m not convinced that USB chargers in particular are especially problematic relative to other forms of power supply.
RiQuY@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
The switch of my power strip broke before any of my USB chargers by turning it on and off everyday. So I stopped turning it off/on and it wont break again, I prefer wasting cents of idle power than having to buy a new power strip each 6 months. Cheaper and easier.
pastermil@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
There are articles I won’t click based on the title:
Guess which one this article falls into.
victorz@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Porque no los dos
pastermil@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
non lo so…
toynbee@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Yes.