Saturday, March 15, 2008

SmartStrip Saga

As previously posted, my experience with SmartStrips has been mixed. The one controlling my entertainment system seems now to be working reliably, except that there is a delay of about 30 seconds between when I switch off the controlling device (the tuner/amp) and when it shuts down the other devices. (I don't know why this is but it is not important. Maybe the tuner/amp goes thourgh some power-down procedure.)

The other SmartStrip still refuses to respond to switching the printer on and off. As noted before, the printer draws 13 watts even when off, so that would hardly be satisfactory anyway. I ended up replacing the wall socket with one with a switch and a light to indicate when it is on. The wall socket happened to be about waist height, so this just allows me to switch everything on and off without crawling under the desk to get to the power strip.

1 comment:

RosInSheffield said...

I wonder how much you save by switching tings off, but I suppose if we all do it, it will have an effect. I almost always switch electrical stuff off at the switch (sometimes I forget - usually it's the PC which I switch off but then it starts installing some Windows update without so much as asking me, and I can't be bothered to sit and wait for it to finish!).
However, despite the recent energy price rises both my gas and electricity bills have gone down in the last few months, and I can only assume it's becasue I've been even more diligent than before in turning things off when they're not needed.