Leave your monitor on standby without the eco-guilt
By Matt Ransford Posted 05.01.2008 at 1:01 pm 8 Comments

Zero-Watt Fujitsu

There is an element of "why did it take so long?" in reports surfacing of the zero-watt monitor from Fujitsu Siemens. It's a flat panel LCD which contains a relay switch that automatically interrupts the power supply when the video signal from an attached PC subsides. Instead of going into standby when idle and consuming a low voltage, the monitor consumes none at all. When the video signal returns, the relay switches the other way and electricity is returned to power up the monitor.

You might think this is not a terribly big deal, but at the end of the day, there are millions of computer monitors left on at offices after their attached PCs have been shut down. While each monitor in standby consumes only a tiny fraction of what it does while it's on, multiply that by all the monitors in the world on standby and you get a pretty big electric bill. It was a good enough idea to win "Innovation of the Year" at this year's CeBIT show and will be available to consumers this summer.

Via PhysOrg

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8 Comments

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luke123abc
05/01/08 at 2:27 pm

this is kinda bull. it should not have taken this logn for one of those to come out. monitors have been around since the 70s and its taken us almost 40 years to get this? thats ridiculous

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luke123abc
05/01/08 at 2:27 pm

this is kinda bull. it should not have taken this logn for one of those to come out. monitors have been around since the 70s and its taken us almost 40 years to get this? thats ridiculous

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luke123abc
05/01/08 at 2:27 pm

this is kinda bull. it should not have taken this logn for one of those to come out. monitors have been around since the 70s and its taken us almost 40 years to get this? thats ridiculous

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CurtisLow
05/01/08 at 4:52 pm

I'm still waiting for a car that can get 100mpg.

I'll spend the money on electricity for my old monitor. No biggie...

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Tor
05/01/08 at 6:43 pm

why DID it take so long?! This feature should be mandatory in all new monitors.

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KarstenHWeiss
05/02/08 at 9:06 am

Well, it has taken so long because it has taken a long time before enough people started worrying about our society's energy use resulting in pressure on the manufacturers to create such a product. And often there may be additional other reasons, such as a technology or materials that need to be developed (following the pressure by the same people as mentioned above) before such innovations can reach production readiness.

Thank the environmental "wackos" and "eco-alarmists" for those innovations. Without them there would be no development in that direction. At the same time pay GOOD attention to not get green-washed. Being green is pretty fashionable (and profitable) these days. Anything you can buy will be eco-friendly somehow soon. Even Walmart claims to be green now.

BTW, my computer and monitor are zero watt for several years now. Just like the TV, stereo, etc. All you have to do is unplug them. Not high-tech, but cheap and easy to do. It does require that you take control of your habits though.

Karsten
--
http://www.polluteless.com
Practical Advice to Pollute Less

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midiman11
05/02/08 at 2:53 pm

some units by APC have this feature , it senses when your not using the pc and the items in secondry outlets turn off power to things like printers monitors etc , pretty cool stuff

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guruuswa
05/09/08 at 6:30 am

silly idea...



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