WattsClever Giveaway!

[ServersPlus]

We have launched a new range of energy saving standby products aimed at saving you/your school money on energy bills and helping the environment as a direct result. The initial range compromises 3 products, all of which essentially cut the power to electrical items left in standby mode but differ slightly in application- see the range here

We have 5 units of the PC Standby saver to give away to the first 5 people to PM us requesting one, on the understanding you will try the product out and give us some feedback.

What's more, to reward people's commitment to helping the environment (and their pockets), we have teamed up with Global Trees and for every unit sold we will plant a tree on your behalf.

For those who miss out on the giveaway but are still interested in the Watts Clever range, we can offer Edugeek members significant discounts off list price.

Thanks

[kmount]

Sounds like a clever bit of kit that!

[reecec]

Sounds like a clever bit of kit that!

They sure do and for those prices aswell.

[kmount]

Definitely worth a look at I think. Good job on the tree planting lark too, can never have enough tree's.

+1 Rep.

[ServersPlus]

Thank you for the quick responses guys - It didn't take long for all five to disappear! I'll send PM's out to the lucky ones now!

Anyone else who is interested, we have some really good prices on these so drop me a PM and I'll work something out for you!

Thanks

[steveg]

I've been playing about with my one of these for a few days now, and have to say overall I'm pretty impressed. I used it to replace the 4-gang on my pc that powers my pc, speakers and 2 monitors. When everything was switched off before, it was still using 41watts. With the device attached this drops to 7watts once it has switched off. (a little disapointed it uses this much still, but there is a definate saving!)


Doing some maths on this, I only use my pc for aprox 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 47 weeks a year, so thats 6880 hours a year thats its not used. This device saves 34 watts, so thats 234kwh a year its saving, or aprox £23. (so its paid for itself in less than a year)

As for the device itself, it looks similar to a normal 4gang, but is slightly larger, and slopes the sockets forwards. As well as the normal power cable, there is another lead with a switch which is used to wake it up again once it powers down. It switches everything off automatically about 30 seconds after you shut the pc down.

I personally can't see these working well in a IT suite type enviroment - the extra on button will be confusing, and will get broken pretty quickly. - and trying to wire up 30 extra 4-gangs is not going to work. These are best suited for use in admin areas, where there are often quite a few 4-gangs already, and you're likely to get some savings.

I will be trying this out on a few other pc's over the next few weeks, and once the bursar is back we may look into ordering a few to extend the trial.

Steve

[dhicks]

we can offer Edugeek members significant discounts off list price.

How much discount? E-On plugs are £9 each on eBay.

--
David Hicks

[ServersPlus]

How much discount? E-On plugs are £9 each on eBay.

--
David Hicks

These are the discounts we can offer EduGeek members: -

PC Standby Control Unit: £9.99 ex VAT (normally £17.25)
Standby Control Socket with Remote : £5.99 ex VAT (normally £8.65)
Automatic Standby Control Unit: £12.99 ex VAT (normally £17.25)

As for the E-on plugs on Ebay - These are pretty good little devices, that work in the same way as the 'automatic standby control unit' (not the PC standby saver - I will mention the differences below) - E-on give a handful of these out to their customers and as you'd expect, most of these end up on eBay. I'm not sure if E-on are still giving these out or not.

With the device attached this drops to 7watts once it has switched off.

Thank you for the review, steveg - It's nice to get some good feedback as these are new products for us.

In our own tests, when the device is shut down is draws just 0.01 watts - just enough to allow the button to function. It's possible that your unit is configured incorrectly (and not shutting down fully) or possibly faulty - If you could check this again and still get 7 watts instead of 0.01, we'll be happy to send you a replacement to try.

As for the differences between the products -

When a PC shuts down, the PSU is still consuming a considerable amount of energy - The PC standby saver detects when the PC shuts down, and then completely cuts the power to the PSU and all peripherals. This is why you need to press the button before turning the PC back on, as this resumes the small amount of power to the PSU.

The automatic standby control unit is similar to the PC standby saver, but instead of completely cutting the power to the PSU, it simply cuts the power to the peripherals when the PC shuts down and keeps the PSU powered. This way, you do not need to press any button before turning the PC back on. This doesn't save you as much money as the PC standby saver though as the PSU is still taking energy.

We will soon be stocking a new product which gives you the option of keeping certain sockets live whilst other sockets automatically shut down. As an example, you may want to cut the power to your DVD player and sound system when you put your TV on standby, but you want to keep your Sky Plus box powered up. With this device you can do this all from the same power unit.

[IrritableTech]

We will soon be stocking a new product which gives you the option of keeping certain sockets live whilst other sockets automatically shut down. As an example, you may want to cut the power to your DVD player and sound system when you put your TV on standby, but you want to keep your Sky Plus box powered up. With this device you can do this all from the same power unit.

That's a very good idea.

[dhicks]

As for the E-on plugs on Ebay - These are pretty good little devices, that work in the same way as the 'automatic standby control unit'

If I understand your explanation correctly, your "automatic standby control unit" still lets power through to the PC. This could be quite handy, as it means the network card is powered and you could switch the PC (and associated screen, printers, etc) on via a wake-on-LAN signal. Ideally, I guess I'd have one of your units on each PC and wake-on-LAN the whole lot every morning, then have them shut down via an automated task / cron job at night. Do you sell, or know of, any software to help manage this (or can Active Directory handle this itself?)?

E-on give a handful of these out to their customers and as you'd expect, most of these end up on eBay. I'm not sure if E-on are still giving these out or not.

There seems to be a good supply on eBay - it's not just the odd promotional device being re-sold, if that's what you mean, you can buy whole bulk boxes.

--
David Hicks

[ServersPlus]

If I understand your explanation correctly, your "automatic standby control unit" still lets power through to the PC. This could be quite handy, as it means the network card is powered and you could switch the PC (and associated screen, printers, etc) on via a wake-on-LAN signal. Ideally, I guess I'd have one of your units on each PC and wake-on-LAN the whole lot every morning, then have them shut down via an automated task / cron job at night. Do you sell, or know of, any software to help manage this (or can Active Directory handle this itself?)?



There seems to be a good supply on eBay - it's not just the odd promotional device being re-sold, if that's what you mean, you can buy whole bulk boxes.

--
David Hicks

You're right, the PSU + mobo/network card remain powered with the 'automatic standby control unit'.

I'm not aware of wake-on-lan being managed via Active Directory (can someone confirm/correct this?) but there are plenty of free tools out there that do a good job of managing this for you.

Have a look at Depicus for example.

[powdarrmonkey]

As submitted to ServersPlus:

I've been using this device at home for the last few days - not connected to my computer, as you'd expect - but instead to a TFT monitor. I thought perhaps the difference in current draw between off and on would be a problem for the Standby Saver, but the tolerance is just fine and my speakers, second monitor, printer, scanner and so on are completely isolated while I'm not at home, even though the machine stays on.

Whilst it's a little larger than a normal 4-gang, and has a triangular base to lift the plugs slightly, the Standby Saver doesn't look out of place above or below a desk. It's clearly marked and easy to install, and includes a blue power indicator so you can tell at a glance if it is supplying juice to the secondary devices. The flying button has plenty of cord and is well-insulated, and includes a sticky pad to fix it down to a desk.

This isn't a product that makes sense in a high-density environment, like a computer room, where central control is more efficient - a stop button on the wall for the teacher, for example. But where machines are individual and allocated to a user, such as an office or staff room, the Standby Saver has the potential to save significant energy, especially if combined with some power management software to ensure machines are shut down overnight.

(you're welcome to use this text under the CC Attribution ND license, Creative Commons — Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported)

[powdarrmonkey]

Ideally, I guess I'd have one of your units on each PC and wake-on-LAN the whole lot every morning, then have them shut down via an automated task / cron job at night. Do you sell, or know of, any software to help manage this (or can Active Directory handle this itself?)?

Shutdownertron will do the nuking for you, but I've had to grow my own WOL solution to tie into Active Directory (it's not suitable for public release though, sorry). AD can't handle it by itself.

These are the discounts we can offer EduGeek members: -

PC Standby Control Unit: £9.99 ex VAT (normally £17.25)
Standby Control Socket with Remote : £5.99 ex VAT (normally £8.65)
Automatic Standby Control Unit: £12.99 ex VAT (normally £17.25)
<snip>
We will soon be stocking a new product which gives you the option of keeping certain sockets live whilst other sockets automatically shut down. As an example, you may want to cut the power to your DVD player and sound system when you put your TV on standby, but you want to keep your Sky Plus box powered up. With this device you can do this all from the same power unit.

To be honest, if the difference is ~£9, I'd rather just plug my sky box straight into the wall. Nice idea, but the best thing about the solution is its simplicity - adding features like configurable sockets complicates things.

[sparkeh]

Review submitted:

Generally I am very impressed. The power to the computer and peripherals is cut a short time after the computer is shut down and worked on a range of machine models that I tested on. Its no hassle to press the button to restore power everytime you start the machine up.

I think that this will be a great device to use in the home, and I certainly will be using it and hope that it will save us some money. I do have concerns about using this in an enterprise environment though.

My main issue is to do with Wake On Lan. Obviously without any power to the NIC this device can't be use with WOL, which most schools/businesses use on a daily basis. So I wouldn't order any of these devices for my schools and would hazard a guess that other schools would not either.

I was wondering if any thought had been given to this problem. Is it possible to have a device designed to allow WOL to continue to function? Perhaps the power to the other sockets could be cut but a low level of power provided to the machine to keep the NIC happy? I would certainly give serious consideration to these kind of devices, provided the cost vs savings figures stacked up.

Of course I have been informed that there is another product that works with WOL that I shall be talking to SMT about and considering.

[nephilim]

having the standby saver product at home has saved me around £5 per month in electricity, however I am curious as to the PC standby saver etc. I am all for reducing my energy output (every bulb in my house is energy saving, I religiously switch off plugs etc etc) so if someone can give me some more details on them I would be more than happy to listen!