General Forum

Re: B&O high tech solution

Harry2008 — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:46:43 GMT

tournedos:

kawo:

Most equipment like this has already been mandated by EU regulations to have <1W power consuption on standby, starting this year I think? That's a bit more sensible, but now that I think about it, may be just the reason why these stupid on/off switches will be there...

Especially with devices like Apple TV's I think the new regulation makes a lot of sense. The major complaint of nearly every owner of the Apple TV was the power consumption/heat generation of the unit when not in use. It is quite remarkeble that even after the unit started shipping in March 2007 no improvement on power consumption has been made....

Re: B&O high tech solution

Electrified — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:06:36 GMT

Peter :

All in favour of saving energy but the addition of a switch on the power cord is not what I would expect! I would suggest that some form of battery back up allied to a motion sensor would have been the high tech solution, allowing the system to be switched back on to mains power remotely and also not disrupting the PIN system. I believe global warming is an entity and switching TVs off from standby could well be a useful saving. I am afraid convenience over rides my conscience though.

A motion detector (and associated hard- and software) would use power when listening and thus wouldn't exactly mean that the power was cut.

The motion detector (and the associated thingies) is merely moving the "standby" from the apparatus one step closer to the power grid.

burantek:
Remarkably, I just read (somewhere) about a TV that does something similar... If it does not sense motion in x minutes... it shuts off!

Remember to move around every X minutes and within the appropriate distance from the telly at all times.

Re: B&O high tech solution

burantek — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:03:51 GMT

Peter :
I would suggest that some form of battery back up allied to a motion sensor would have been the high tech solution, allowing the system to be switched back on to mains power remotely and also not disrupting the PIN system.

Remarkably, I just read (somewhere) about a TV that does something similar... If it does not sense motion in x minutes... it shuts off!

Let me search around... I'll repost if I can find it!

++++EDIT++++

Apparently not new, articles go back to May, 2009...

SONY

Re: B&O high tech solution

Peter — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:00:19 GMT

All in favour of saving energy but the addition of a switch on the power cord is not what I would expect! I would suggest that some form of battery back up allied to a motion sensor would have been the high tech solution, allowing the system to be switched back on to mains power remotely and also not disrupting the PIN system. I believe global warming is an entity and switching TVs off from standby could well be a useful saving. I am afraid convenience over rides my conscience though.

Re: B&O high tech solution

tournedos — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:45:08 GMT

kawo:

I have to say that I am a little bit confused by some opinions here. Saving energy is a "must", even when it starts with tiny little things like a power off button. Just think off the number off TV's in world if you would switch the off if unused....

I travel a lot and I am on the road most days of the week. Why should my hole entertainment system be on standby? With all the gear it is not just one TV any more, all my B&O gear with a power socket sum up to 18 devices on stand by all the time!

I agree here. Many of the older B&O devices use way too much power on standby. No wonder though as they were designed a long time before energy awareness, most linkable receivers for example would probably be very different if designed now. But there are many utterly stupid other devices nowadays. Like STBs that can be switched to "standby", and most it really does is blank the video output and turn a LED from green to red! The processor runs just as usual...

Most equipment like this has already been mandated by EU regulations to have <1W power consuption on standby, starting this year I think? That's a bit more sensible, but now that I think about it, may be just the reason why these stupid on/off switches will be there...

Re: B&O high tech solution

kawo — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:08:33 GMT

I have to say that I am a little bit confused by some opinions here. Saving energy is a "must", even when it starts with tiny little things like a power off button. Just think off the number off TV's in world if you would switch the off if unused....

I travel a lot and I am on the road most days of the week. Why should my hole entertainment system be on standby? With all the gear it is not just one TV any more, all my B&O gear with a power socket sum up to 18 devices on stand by all the time!

So I manually pull the plug of my BV3 with Beolabs in my office, I have a master/slave power socket for the media room (BS3 goes to stand by and all the rest is switched off, including the BL5 with disabled PINs ....)

But the BS9000 and BL2000 keep on going....but the worst device I own is the AppleTV, this is a "heater" to keep your tea warm all day long!

Re: B&O high tech solution

Electrified — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:32:03 GMT

bayerische:
I think computers and the pace of them getting faster/better has contributed to the trend across the board we are seeing now. Full HD TV... how long? Until the ones who theoretically can afford one has one, then it's "21:9" or "extreme HD" or "3D TV" or the next option. As long as you can tap people for money why not? It used to be only alcohol and cigarette manufacturers.

The answer, of course, is educating the consumer, and if need be, force the hand of the manufacturers just like this hardware button, or just like having a cap on how much something can use in standby and so forth.

The market in itself cannot do it alone, so on one hand, we need someone to tell the manufacturers what to do, and on the other hand tell the consumer what to do, and - hopefully - in the process educate them to be more than numbwits going for the latest shiniest thing whether it's needed or not.

Re: B&O high tech solution

bayerische — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:32:56 GMT

Stoney3K:

It's the 'total cost of ownership' we're missing here -- people are buying a new flat-screen TV every 3 years, just because the old one doesn't support HD or because the neighbour has one too. What happens to all of the old units? How many tons of CO2 do you think we can save by manufacturing durable products that will last decades again, instead of years?

But there's no money in a product being up to date 10 years. And no funding for climate scientists.

I think computers and the pace of them getting faster/better has contributed to the trend across the board we are seeing now. Full HD TV... how long? Until the ones who theoretically can afford one has one, then it's "21:9" or "extreme HD" or "3D TV" or the next option. As long as you can tap people for money why not? It used to be only alcohol and cigarette manufacturers.

Re: B&O high tech solution

Electrified — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:24:11 GMT

Ignoring the obvious conspiray theories and denials in this thread, I don't see what the problem is - besides the PIN-code reentering. It seems B&O are phasing out the pin code system with their new platform all together, and having the ability to shut it down hard doesn't mean it should be used. I guess you guys also prefer if your laptops didn't have a power off button, nor volume button and so on, as that can all be done by software.

It's a good thing in general having a hardware shut off button: If nothing else, it removes the circuitry from the electrical grid.

The notion that the circuitry will be damaged by being shut down every night is blatantly false, unless you live in a highly corrosive environment (i.e. on a boat or straight to the sea with waves awash just beside you), and you tend to go from cold while being shut off to warm (indoors/below deck) and turn the thing on.

Re: B&O high tech solution

Stoney3K — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:28:32 GMT

Mr10Percent:
I would also like to imagine that the total eneregy required to add these extra components (and lets face it they will all come like that soon) to electrical equipment will be greater than the energy saved.

Mad world.

10%

Think of all the time it took to engineer such a solution, all of the energy spent in marketing/advertising for it (printing folders, producing advertising clips on radio/TV), and we haven't even scratched the surface on all of the politicians that made this fluke happen in the first place!

I think I'll leave all of my light bulbs on tonight. The total energy it takes to research, develop, manufacture, advertise, package, and dispose of those 'energy saving' light bulbs will be orders of magnitude greater than me burning hundreds of Watts for a year long. It's the 'total cost of ownership' we're missing here -- people are buying a new flat-screen TV every 3 years, just because the old one doesn't support HD or because the neighbour has one too. What happens to all of the old units? How many tons of CO2 do you think we can save by manufacturing durable products that will last decades again, instead of years?

It's overconsumption we need to fix. Not the 3 Watts of excess energy wasted by leaving your VCR in standby, but the fact that some people buy a new VCR every year, or upgrade it for DVD, Bluray, Purple-Ray or whatever they'll figure out in the near future.

Re: B&O high tech solution

bayerische — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:15:20 GMT

Daniel:

bayerische:

The PIN code seems to be more of a hassle than repellant... As was mentioned a few days ago, the PIN isn't really going to repulse burglars, what's the odds of them knowing about it? Sure we can get some enjoyment knowing most likely no-one can use our stolen goods, but it doesn't exactly help once your home has been destroyed/violated...

I can't find the article now, but I read since B&O started with pin code protection, thefts of B&O in Denmark had a huge decrease. It was at least well over 50%.

Wow, that's great if it really is so.

On the other hand, what's the odds of a dane not knowing what B&O is? It's like a finn not knowing what Nokia is.

Re: B&O high tech solution

Daniel — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:43:55 GMT

bayerische:

The PIN code seems to be more of a hassle than repellant... As was mentioned a few days ago, the PIN isn't really going to repulse burglars, what's the odds of them knowing about it? Sure we can get some enjoyment knowing most likely no-one can use our stolen goods, but it doesn't exactly help once your home has been destroyed/violated...

I can't find the article now, but I read since B&O started with pin code protection, thefts of B&O in Denmark had a huge decrease. It was at least well over 50%.

Re: B&O high tech solution

Daniel — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:39:01 GMT

elephant:

we are scheduled to hit 41C on Monday

And Sweden has -41 C.

Don't know what I prefer.

Re: B&O high tech solution

ajames — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:55:05 GMT

I read somewhere once that by powering off and on products that are meant to be left in standby you reduce the life of the product due to the constant surges of power rather than a continuos stream - don't know how true that is but it would surely contribute to greater energy requirements to make new products and dispose of the old one. I leave mine on standby unless I'm going away.

Re: B&O high tech solution

Toubro — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:10:12 GMT

Stan:

Irony or sarcasm, I'm sure

Not always obvious in written word and across languages/cultures (speaking from experience, unfortunately)...

Stan

Thank God. I wasn't sure and it is often hard to read sarcasm without smilies and such, but I had a feeling that Peter was just being funny