British Gas has upset some wings today. In a report published by the BBC, the UK’s largest energy company advised households to turn off what the company has called “vampire appliances”. This is not a TV that shows one of Dracula’s many movies in repetition, or even your Switch running the Castlevania Advance collection 24 hours a day, but rather a device that still consumes power even when it is on standby. . The company said turning off these devices instead of putting them on standby could save the average UK household about 14 147 a year. According to British Gas research, leaving a game console in standby mode costs up to, 12.17 a year, while leaving a computer or laptop connected to the same setting will give you back περίπου 11.22. The British Gas investigation has provoked a series of criticisms from around the world, with the very first comment questioning the legitimacy of the data: [The article] are tragically inaccurate. A typical TV uses 0.5-1 watts on standby or 2w if it communicates with the internet – even TVs a decade ago. This is £ 1.23- £ 4.91 per year – a far cry from the reported £ 24.61. That would be 10w. From 2013, a range of devices in the EU can not exceed 0.5 W in standby mode or 1 W if it has a monitor (eg microwave clock). Another issue is the rather sharp rise in the energy price ceiling since April 2022 in the United Kingdom, where household energy bills have risen. This, for many, seems to be a little more than British Gas, especially when you compare the company’s profits to 44% 11 118 million last year. Eurogamer shared a survey last year (updated today by the author) that says previous reports of vampire use were based on outdated metrics and devices, such as vampire laptops despite using this energy to actively charge device. These figures on which the British Gas report is based are 10 years old. According to Nintendo, the Switch consumes less power than other gaming consoles currently on the market. In sleep mode, both the standard model and the OLED model consume an average of between 0.3 and 0.5 W of power, compared to the 3.7 W of the PS5 at rest and the Xbox Series S 0.5 W standby or 13 W in Instant-On. So Nintendo Switch owners can relax a little easier, at least. You can read a summary of the report, published by the BBC, below, where you can also see the Eurogamer findings right next door.
