I\u2019ve always been curious about power consumption ever since the days before it was fashionable to think about this stuff. The poor, lonely, unemployed, set of servers in the data center used to bother me. Sure, they kept to themselves and rarely bothered anyone. But, no one had the guts to fire them, and they continued to generate heat, suck down power, and take up space (who hasn\u2019t felt that way at some point?). <\/p>\n
Of course, power frugality should start in the home. When looking into getting a new TV, I noticed that actual power consumption statistics were really hard to come by. Wattage ratings sometimes give a partial picture, but they\u2019re far from real-world usage stats. So, taking the problem into my own hands (literally), I used a handy power consumption meter to measure how much juice each of these devices used. Below are details of my \u201ctest environment\u201d. The information is just for one configuration of devices and is completely anecdotal. Still, I hope the information will be useful in some way and will inspire others to do the same types of tests.<\/p>\n
My current home theater setup is somewhat outdated (would-be thieves, please take note). It includes the following:<\/p>\n
The below tables provide details on instantaneous power consumption (in Watts) of each component in the setup. I have tried to show the various modes, settings, and operations of the different devices.<\/p>\n
Below are the results for various modes of my Samsung LCD TV. The X360 uses component video cables, and the TV\u2019s speakers are powered off (unless otherwise noted).<\/p>\n