You can tell that the Washington Post writers get paid by the word. They spent two pages to outline a series of tips and tricks to save on energy consumption for people who have a television and a surround sound system or just a DVR. The actual article is here.
Reading it reminded me of what I deal with at home. The last thing I want to do at the end of the night is to turn the television off and there’s no way I’m going to reach around the back of my setup to unplug everything just to plug it all back in when I wake back up. Chances are that 99.9% of you are in the same situation. The good news is that there’s something simple which can help.
At the end of the story, the author mentions two products which make getting rid of “vampire power” a snap. One is from Monster Cable, so I refuse to mention it. The other one, from Belkin is the Conserve Energy Saving Surge Strip.
The premise behind it is pretty cool actually. Acording to Amazon.com:
The Conserve offers a total of eight surge-protected outlets, six of which are “switchable” and two that are “always-on.” This means that you can connect up to six devices that can be controlled by the remote, and two devices that will always stay on. The “always-on” outlets are useful for devices that require a constant flow of energy, such as routers, alarm clocks, cable modems, or DVRs.
BAM. You use the remote to turn off power to up to 6 devices and have space for two which you don’t want to have to worry about turning off and off. If you have a plasma or large screen LCD HDTV this will probably help you out a great deal.
Has anyone tried out something like this before and want to share their experience?
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