Ever wondered how much energy that little red light on your TV overnight is costing you? A lot is the simple answer.

Bye Bye Standby is a brand new energy saving product from Harmony Systems. Part of the company's Domia Lite product range, Bye Bye Standby saves the energy that the device would normally use by being "on standby".

Bye Bye Standby is a system made up of two parts, the “Green Switch” and “Smart Sockets” (pictured right). Simply plug each device that you wish to control into a Smart Socket. The Smart Sockets have large mechanical switches inside that operate when the Green Switch is pressed.

Press the Green Switch (pictured right) down as you leave the room and the Smart Sockets switch their respective appliance off. Press the Green Switch up and they all come on again. The Green Switch and the Smart Sockets communicate using radio signals so to and one Green Switch can operate as many Smart Sockets as you want.

Simple Installation – no wires, no fuss Installation is simple. Because the Green Switch and the Smart Sockets operate wirelessly there are no wires to install in your house. All you have to do is:

1. Plug each device, (for example your TV), into a Smart Socket. 2. Plug the Smart Socket into a standard mains wall socket 3. Peel off the sticky pad on the back of the Green Switch and stick it on the wall next to your light switches 4. As you go to bed, press the Green Switch to turn all your devices on standby completely off 5. The next day, when you next want to use any of the equipment, such as your TV, simply press the switch again and all the devices come back on standby exactly as you left them.

The system can operate a whole host of equipment but is designed ideally for electronic equipment such as TV's, computers, printers, DVDs etc. Because the system turns the power completely off we don't recommend using it to control any device that has an inbuilt clock that is not battery backed or any device that you use to record things overnight.

How much money will Bye Bye Standby save? Using Bye Bye Standby will cut your energy usage significantly. DEFRA have stated that if you turn devices off of standby in a typical house then you would save on average £38 per year at 2006 prices.

This equates to a saving in money for you, but also a significant saving for the environment. Calculations show that if everyone in the UK used Bye Bye Standby then we would save:

1. We would save enough power to turn off an entire power station 2. We could save up to 5 million tons of coal and all the associated costs in transporting this vast amount of coal 3. More than 5 million tons of CO2 would be saved. Helping the environment and slowing global warming.

What we did Using a commercial grade energy tester from an online site to test how much energy a mains device consumed when it was plugged in on a small LCD readout on the equipment. We then went around the office and tested a variety of things in the following scenarios:

• Devices operating normally in standby (or low power “energy saving” mode where available) with no By Bye Standby Smart Socket plugged in. • As above with a Smart Socket plugged in

We tested a variety of items such as our TV's, plasmas, printers, computers, computer monitors and coffee machine What we found As we were doing the tests it was clear to us that we were in blissful ignorance of just how much power was being wasted at night (and during the weekends!) by our office.

What we found: Please see table (right)

On average Bye Bye Standby saved around 15W of power for each device it was plugged into. Typically, our survey showed that people had around 7 or 8 devices in their homes which would possibly be left on standby, sometimes it was as low as 3 or 4 and one person had an incredible11 devices!

If every device, on average had 8 devices then at 10W each that's 80W of power being wasted every minute of every hour of the night.

How much money would you save if you turned these things off over night using BBSB? DEFRA estimate roughly £38 per household per annum.

Now, in the UK there are roughly 20 million homes. What happens if everyone woke up to this and started using BBSB? Well, 20,000,000 x 80W is 1,600,000,000 W of power. Well it looks like a huge number, but what does it represent?

1,600,000,000 W is roughly the power output of a UK coal powered power station >> We could turn that off.

1,600,000,000 W generates approximately 5,400,000 tones of the green house gas Carbon Dioxide, CO2 >> Well, I've always had a problem visualising what a ton of any gas looked like but the scientists tell me (a) this is a lot, and (b) if we can save it, we should do! :-)

We all save the environment, we get to switch off an entire power station AND we save money ourselves in the process.

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For further information please contact:

Judy Wakelin

Tel: 0845 644 3330

Email: judy.wakelin@simplyautomate.co.uk