It seems we are now going to be encouraged to economise with low power electronics, smart devices consume power ever when in the off status.
The Pi has become more powerful over the years and as such power consumption has risen from below 5W to maybe above 15W. A year ago few would have worried about this but seems now me may have to. As the Pi has evolved various additional scripts have enhanced the the data output making the hobby even more interesting.
My Pi Zero W has been running for a few years now, consumes around 400mA with just the tuner plugged in to USB - just basic PiAware installed, no extra scripts so within its capability and I’ve had no issues. CPU seems to run between 50-70% Temperature runs below 50C
Just as an experiment I used to shut down some servers between midnight and 6am. Using cron shut down dump-1090, FR24, ADSBx and FA feeds along with piaware and lighttpd, this dropped the power consuption even further (can’t recall figures but certainly less than the 400mA when in use), also temperature drops from around 50C to around 39C
This was carried out over a year ago and was nothing to do with economy, merely curiosity.
I wonder if we have reached a stage in society where we may now consider turning off 5W devices to save money.
pi4 uses 5.3 W for me feeding with an rtl-sdr.
That’s measured with a 230 V power meter.
That certainly isn’t much but I’m guessing with the mounting panic surrounding electricity costs some may be looking to save a few watts here and there.
I am operating my feeder on a smart power connector which measures the consumption.
The Airsquitter (internally an Orange PI Zero) is using 0.082 kWh per day.
Changing it to a Raspberry 4B with 2Gig RAM, active cooling and an Airspy with Uputronics LNA connected is consuming 0,17 kWh per day which is around twice the amount of the Airsquitter.
Calculated for the full year it is around 60 kWh per year for this configuration.
With a Flightaware Stick it might be a bit less.
With my current rate, the hobby costs around 25 Euros per year which is less than a box of good beer
But then there are more ways to save money.
For example, the year cost of a pc that is running idle for a year is around 180 euro, the raspberry pi’s I have are doing 45 euro per year (3,75 per pi per month).
My pc’s are switched off when away. It reduces the bill and they can’t be hacked either
Stand-by functions on tv and other electronics eat more away per year so that might be a better option then shutting down the pi an saving on that.
Switching equipment I have have autosensing ports so they shut down if not connected.
The powerusage of a Pi is not that much, shutting down a lightbulb might deliver a bigger result depending on the type
Yeah, so you would need to turn off the power to the RPi to completely turn it off. To do that you would need a WiFi controlled outlet. But then you have the power of that WiFi device at all times. So there’s probably little to be saved in power consumption by turning off your setup for 8 hours or so at night.
The smart homes that have alexa or google type devices in every room, wonder how that will go. I am resisting costing everything otherwise that will take the pleasure out of living, my post merely posed a question that some may take more seriously than others. Some may be forced to do so.
Last year people sensibly looked at kW - now they are looking at individual watts. Shame the pico can’t run dump1090 (or can it), they run for about 80 years on a battery , now there’s a thought.
I have a smart home with devices in every room. power useage is pretty low on these devices, all equipment at home is voice controlled or time duration is scripted via the home automation system. So no longer lights that stay on when no one is in the room etc…
I have some too, I am resisting becoming paranoid with turning things off but some will be forced to do so. Previously power consumption was merely a curiosity for me but now more relevant.
Appreciate power consumption is low on the smart devices but a wifi plug, even in the off position, uses current to keep the switch off, slightly more current to keep it in the on position.
I think there will be a big change of culture amongst people caused by this, people will become very conscious of the cost of everything. Hope not
Wi-Fi plug are not in my setup, it’s either a Zigbee smartswitch or a 433 MHz switch.
Both are running on either utility or on a battery ( smaller sensors) with a battery change once a year.
All bulbs are smart LED bulbs that also can switch color etc. The cost of buying them is higher then a normal bulb but they have a life expectancy on 20.000 hours.
Zigbee and 433 transmitter are both connected to a Pi and use the USB ports of that.
When all is up and running in this home I have 70 IP addresses in use so that’s why I decided on these two protocols
The cost of this hobby shouldn’t be a main factor in your power usage, there are lots of better places to start saving but that’s my point of view
My Pi4 which is running a very high CPU load 24/7 draws around 5W.
My new Apple Mac Studio Ultra which is significantly more powerful than any of my RPis draws 18-19W at idle!
Despite the fact that it was super expensive, I’m saving an absolute bucketload of energy.
/edit - Lower than that. Currently sitting idle, showing just around 16W on the meter. Incredible.
There are 8760 hours in a year. So 1 watt of power consumption will use 8.76 kilowatts (KW) in a year. Assuming 15 cents per KW, this is about $1.30 per year per watt.
Our Pi’s at 500ma or so at 5.1volts, and including the efficiency of the power devices likely use between 3 to 5 watts as they run. This puts the power cost $3.90 to $6.50 per year. Airspy users with BiasT LNA’s likely use more due to higher CPU levels, but not that much more. You spent more on an HDMI cable than that.
I think I can handle this yearly cost for this hobby project. I know you might want to include the wifi and internet costs, but you have that anyway, no extra cost for our bits going over the net.
Just my $0.02 worth. (2 cents worth for those who like older terms)
B with keyboard = 1.89 W -> daily 45 Wh [8]
B+ with keyboard = 1.21 W -> daily 29 Wh
B+ with LAN/USB chip off (no i/o except GPIO) = 0.76 W -> daily 18.2 Wh
B+ shut down = 0.26 W -> daily 6.2 Wh
A idle = 0.7 W -> daily 17 Wh
A+ idle = 0.52 W -> daily 12.5 Wh
Pi2 B at idle = 1.15 W -> daily 28 Wh
Pi Zero at idle = 0.51 W -> daily 12.2 Wh
Pi3 B at idle = 1.15 W -> daily 28 Wh
Pi3 B at 100% * 4 CPUs = 3.6 W -> daily 86 Wh
Pi4 B turned off = 0.34 W -> daily 8.2 Wh
Pi4 B at idle = 2.85 W -> daily 68.4 Wh
Pi4 B at 100% * 4 CPUs = 6.4 W -> daily 154 Wh
, now there’s a thought.
so that’s why I decided on these two protocols 