This is how much your gadgets are really costing you
Is charging your phone overnight draining your bank balance?
Is charging your phone overnight draining your bank balance?
Is charging your phone overnight draining your bank balance?
Have you ever wondered how much your technology addiction is costing you? We're not talking about the effect on your social life, we're talking energy spend. Most of us barely give a second thought to how much our gadgets are costing us in terms of energy. But tracking your energy spend in your home could save you precious pennies in the long-run - and who isn't down for that?
From phone charging to late-night laptop sessions, it's always good to be aware. Here's how much your gadgets are really costing you.
1. Just being connected to the internet
Considering a lot of our gadgets rely on it, broadband is a big one when it comes to energy usage. And unless we're interrogating it for cutting out mid-important Netflix binge, we usually leave it on and forget about it. Turns out that the likes of BT's Home Hub uses around $13 worth of energy a year.
2. Charging your phone overnight
The clock finally hits 11:30pm and you decide you should probably get off Instagram. But oh wait - you're only on 11% battery and you need to be sure your alarm will go off in the morning. Most of us charge our phones overnight, but is it harming our bank balance as well as our battery? Say you sleep for eight hours a night, the cost of charging your phone will still only be around one cent. If you do that every night, it'll set you back around $4 a year.
3. Powering up your Mac
If you have a Macbook Pro and use a regular Apple Mac charger, and if we presume that you're getting eight hours of sleep a night, charging your laptop overnight ends up costing you seven cents. That's $22.55 a year if you're charging it every day.
4. Having a PS4 session
Granted, the amount of time you spend on the PS4 will vary from person to person, but we're going to use two hours of gaming as an example. A two-hour go on FIFA would cost you around three cents. Bear in mind you'll also need a TV for all that gaming - to power your average 42" LED plasma TV for two hours, that'll cost you another three cents, so that's 6 cents in total. If you decided to have a whole weekend of gaming (say 8 hours a day), that's 48 cents of energy spent - something to keep an eye on if you're a regular gamer.
5. Having your speakers 'idle'
Unless you spend the majority of your day at home blasting out tunes, chances are you're only using your speakers for around 3 hours a day max when you're at home hanging out in the evenings. And most of us leave them on idle mode instead of turning them off at the power source. If your speakers use 3.8 watts of power when idle (eg. Sonos' PLAY:1 speakers), this means that those 21 hours when you're not actually listening to music will be setting you back one cent, which means another $3.65 added onto your yearly energy bill.
6. Forgetting about that printer
If you have a laser printer at home and you leave it on standby instead of switching it off when you're not using it, you're costing yourself around $23.61 a year in energy.
7. Getting grilled
How pricey is your favorite cheesy grilling gadget, though? If you're grilling for five minutes with the 1740w appliance it'll cost you around three cents, and if you grill once a week that amounts to about $4 a year. Now that's a spend we're saying is definitely worth it.