Treehugging Techie's Trick · 2007-03-07
I recently bought an ammeter on sale from Sears for $25 and started wandering around my apartment measuring the amount of power my electronics used.
Apparently, the “power” button on my LCD monitor only serves to turn the little LED on the front on and off: whether it’s in stand-by or “off”, it consumes about 2.5W. On, it consumes a whopping 32.5W, more than my laptop while in regular use.
For a while, I was tempted to get something like the Kill-a-watt just to see how much power I was using, but I found a cheap extension cord, sliced to separate the +, -, and ground combined with a clamp ammeter does the trick for the same price with a more versatile device to boot.
Other interesting appliances were the TV (7W “off”, 90W on), the microwave (1.5W off, lots and lots on), and the Roomba while charging (4W). Unlike my old Nokia charger that remained warm while plugged in, even without a phone, my Motorola charger doesn’t seem to consume power while the phone isn’t plugged in.
