Image: Nintendo Life / Damien McFarran
British Gas ruffled a few feathers today. In a report published by the BBC, the largest energy company in the United Kingdom advised households to exclude what the company called “vampire devices”. This is not a TV that shows one of the many Dracula movies in rerun, or even your Switch that works with Castlevania Advance Collection 24 hours a day, but rather a device that still consumes energy, even when in mode on standby.
The company said switching off these devices instead of putting them on standby could save the average British household around £ 147 a year. According to a study by British Gas, leaving a game console in standby mode costs up to £ 12.17 a year, while leaving a computer or laptop included in the same setting will cost you around £ 11.22.
The British Gas study drew a number of criticisms from people, with the first comment questioning the legitimacy of the figures:
[The article] is terribly inaccurate. A typical TV uses 0.5-1 watts in standby mode or 2w if it communicates to the Internet – even TVs from a decade ago. That’s £ 1.23- £ 4.91 a year – far from the £ 24.61 quoted. That would be 10w.
As of 2013, the range of devices in the EU cannot exceed 0.5w in standby mode or 1w if there is a display (eg microwave clock).
Another problem is the rather sharp increase in the energy price cap from April 2022 in the United Kingdom, which has led to an increase in household energy bills. This, for many, seems to be a little over the top for British Gas, especially when you compare that the company’s profits rose 44% to £ 118 million last year.
Eurogamer shared a study from last year (which was updated today by the author), according to which previous reports of vampire use were based on outdated measurements and devices, such as laptops that use vampires, although they use this energy to actively charge the device. These figures, on which the British Gas report is based, are reportedly 10 years old.
According to its own data, the Nintendo Switch consumes less power than other gaming consoles currently on the market. In sleep mode, both the standard and OLED models consume on average between 0.3 and 0.5 W of power, compared to 3.7 W on the PS5 in sleep mode and 0.5 W on the Xbox Series S in standby mode. or 13 W in Instant-On. This way, Nintendo Switch owners can rest at least a little easier.
You can read a summary of the report published by the BBC below, where you can also view Eurogamer’s own findings right next to it.
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