Comments on: Review: Smart Strip Saves $1.60 to $5.70 of Electricity per Month

By: Save LOTS of Energy and the Life of Your Gadgets with a Smart Power Strip - The Fun Times Guide to Living Green

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:20:59 +0000

[...] Special note for laptop users: Check out the tip at FivePercent.us to make sure that your laptop functions correctly in the control outlet. [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:21:08 +0000

Great, detailed article on this Smart Power Strip. I’ll definitely look into getting this. With a 6 month payback period, it’s a good deal. Electricity in my area is $.16 per kilowatt, so my payback period would be slightly better.
Like you, I have Windows XP and I too have problems getting standby to work correctly, so that’s another incentive for me to go to something like this.

By: Saving Lots of Watts by Sleuthing | What's on?

Saving Lots of Watts by Sleuthing | What's on? — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:59:06 +0000

[...] a few from computers that I do need, but only when the computer is being used; so, I put them on smart strips. Those changes equal 45 Watts [...]

By: British Gas Energy Smart

British Gas Energy Smart — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:25:39 +0000

Seems a very good appliance for laptop users that need that extra bit of energy to finish off their work. Never thought that something like could exist, more because it has “smart” functions. Thumbs up for any kinda of device that turns your product into energy efficient. Nice one, will definitly buy one. Cheers for the info. Will recommend it.

By: Tom Harrison

Tom Harrison — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:51:12 +0000

Yep, I tried adjusting the sensitivity (actually tried it with both a Dell laptop and a Mac mini, haven’t tried with my new macbook) — none drew enough power to trigger the turn off. But no worries — my monitor has its own (non-operating system) power-save mode; I just set that for a short time and when the monitor goes into power-save, all the other peripherals are switched off.

By: pressingonalways

pressingonalways — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:02:17 +0000

Did you try adjusting the “adjustment” screw? That changes the sensitivity… I have a macbook pro and a macbook and have no problems with smart strip turning off my devices when it is in standby.

By: Gary Ingalls

Gary Ingalls — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:08:21 +0000

If we would all go back to “horse and buggy” and newspapers, and candles etc., we all would save money and live with a lot less stress in our lives! All Aboard!

By: Tom Harrison

Tom Harrison — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:20:28 +0000

Laurel –

There are three kinds of plugs on a Smart Strip: master, switched, and always-on on the Smart Strip. For a TV/Cable Box (sound system, etc.) setup you would typically plug the TV in to the master; when it is turned off, the other peripherals in the switched plugs are turned off, too.

In the case of a DVR, you would most likely want it to be on all the time, since shows may record at various times when the TV is otherwise off.

The master port works by determining that the thing plugged in has stopped or started using electricity; the change between and off needs to be significant. But even when a DVR isn’t recording, it still uses about the same amount of power, so the Smart Strip wouldn’t be able to tell.

What we need is a Really Smart Strip, I guess :-)

To answer your question, I can’t speak for all DVRs, but I suspect most are like TiVo (which I have) and synchronize their clocks to some master time at the cable company. So if you did turn off the DVR, it would probably come back up just fine.

One thought I had for this was to instead use a simple night-day time-of-day timer for the DVR (simple ones are available to make your house look lived-in by turnings lights on and off while you’re away). I don’t think there are any shows we record that are after midnight or before 7am, so little or nothing would be missed.

By: Laurel

Laurel — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:53:38 +0000

Will the smart strip work for A DVR if it’s plugged into the master port or do you lose viability if the item plugged in has a digital clock?

By: Vampire Transformer Power Supplies | Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

Vampire Transformer Power Supplies | Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:01:59 +0000

[...] want it. Of course the power strips often have a light in their switch! (Update 2009 — get a smart power strip, which turns off power to vampires when they are not in [...]