Hacked Television Uses No Power In Standby Mode
 

How much effort do you put into conserving energy throughout your daily routine? Diligence in keeping lights and appliances turned off are great steps, but those selfsame appliances likely still draw power when not in use. Seeing the potential to reduce energy wasted by TVs in standby mode, the [Electrical Energy Management Lab] team out of the University of Bristol have designed a television that uses no power in standby mode.

The feat is accomplished through the use of a chip designed to activate at currents as low as 20 picoamps. It, and a series of five photodiodes, is mounted in a receiver which attaches to the TV. The receiver picks up the slight infrared pulse from the remote, inducing a slight current in the receiving photodiodes, providing enough power to the chip which in turn flips the switch to turn on the TV. A filter prevents ambient light from activating the receiver, and while the display appears to take a few seconds longer to turn on than an unmodified TV, that seems a fair trade off if you aren’t turning it on and off every few minutes.


While some might shy away from an external receiver, the small circuit could be handily integrated into future TVs. In an energy conscious world, modifications like these can quickly add up.

We featured a similar modification using a light-sensitive diode a few years ago that aimed to reduce the power consumption of a security system. Just be wary of burglars wielding flashlights.

http://hackaday.com/2017/01/04/hacke...-standby-mode/