BG Standby Saver

[The Medway Handyman]

Got round to installing the freebie Standby Saver today.

What a pile of poo.

Eventually got it to recognise the remote, but it doesn't work.

1) Telewest box has to reset itself when its used, takes up to a minute - I could plug that into one of the override sockets.

2) Surround sound loses all its settings & has to be reset with the remote - I could plug that into the other override sockets.

3) TV comes on in standby mode - I could plug that into..... no I couldn't, there are only two. If you press the remote the TV comes on, then everything goes off.

4) Remote only triggers the standby sensor from a range of 2'. Works fine on the telly.

5) It does turn the DVD player on and off.

Typical treehugger product. Supposed to save the planet but doesn't work in practise.

[Owain]

I was expecting something that worked on sensing the load on the 'primary' socket and turned on/off the secondary sockets accordingly. I don't use the remote to turn the telly on/off anyway, and I don't want the STB resetting every half hour.

It will do as a raffle prize for the Xmas Fayre though.

The energy monitor thing is quite cute though, I'm trying to find what's using that 100W of standby power ...

Owain

[Peter Andrews]

the freebie Standby Saver :-)

Peter

[Part timer]

Mine shows 0.00kW if the fridge-freezer and/or chest freezer aren't doing their stuff. Two or three alarm clock radios are about the only things that get left on here if I'm going out for a while (I put the monitor near the door). I suppose the outside PIR must use something miniscule too.

[Owain]

I've got a router, which I think is about 20W, a telephone dialler, 3 clock-radios, answering machine and bugler alarm ... oh, and an energy monitor :-(

The novelty will wear off in a week and it'll probably form another Xmas present for someone. Quite disappointed I've only got one - I did order two.

Owain

[Andrew Gabriel]

As I said in another thread, I bought one recently, and it consumes about 1.4W. Since all modern devices (except set top boxes) consume only tiny fractions of a watt on standby, I would do much better to leave them on standby than use this.

[Roger]

That is EXACTLY why the Dragons Den people didn't invest in the company that made them. I tried one out and it is much easier to use the OFF switch on the sockets. They were asked on dragons Den, "if I wanted to save energy why would I plug something in that used energy such as this product".

You didn't read the instructions correctly, mine took 1 minute.

You could, but this defeats the object of the power saver and shows it is a complete waste of time. That is why BG give them away.

You could, but you might want to get the surround sound system repaired.

Now mine doesn't do that! I had to press the remote to get the sockets to switch on, then press again for the TV to come on.

You have a broken one as mine does it from 12ft away.

They are completely useless, don't do what they claim and there is no point having one. No research has been done and there is NO market for the product - no one would buy one. Why buy a product claiming to save energy when it doesn't - it costs to run it rather than switch everything OFF.

[The Medway Handyman]

I did. It took three attempts to get it to work.

Exactly.

Nothing wrong with it. It has various input possibilities. The standby thingy meerly switched it on but was unable to tell it where to select its input from.

Same with me, but the second press triggered the standby thingy & turned everything off again. If you shielded the remote so it could only point at the standby sensor it worked.

So does mine with the normal telly.

I certainly wouldn't.

Indeed, it appears to consume more than it saves.

[Rocket Ron]

I just got one today, I think it is brilliant. I take it your socket is easily accessible, to get at mine I have to move a 28 in CRT TV.

I took less than a minute to get it working, it took longer to move the TV out and back again so I could plug it in. So no longer a bright red LED light on my DVD player annoying me when the TV is off.

Ron