News By Russell Holly Dec. 23, 2013 4:39 pm
The move to digital television in the US had an unfortunate consequence: a massive ramp up in the use of power-sucking set-top boxes. To help address these boxes, as well as others sitting on our entertainment centers right now, an agreement has just been made to start building better boxes for our future.
After a study conducted by Ecova in 2011, it was discovered that in the US set-top boxes were responsible for $3 billion in energy use every year, a number which has only gone up since the study was first published. These set-top boxes were in more homes than ever before, acting as DVRs and streaming media devices and cable access consoles and, incredibly, this number didn’t include devices like the Roku, Apple TV, Google TV, or anything else that you might consider to be an STB alternative.
The National Resources Defense Council has been lobbying hard to see some changes made in the energy consumption rates of these devices, and it looks like an agreement has been made to accomplish exactly that.
Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirectTV, AT&T, and Motorola are on a list of companies who have come together with the NRDC to agree on energy sipping set-top boxes for the future. The deal will see a 10-45% in the power consumption rates of these set-top boxes, which is expected to save consumers $1B per year, or 5 million metric tons of carbon pollution by 2017.
We’ve seen a lot of the technology these companies plan to deploy in existence already. Devices capable of deep sleep modes when not in use, energy efficient processors like the ones seen in Google’s Chromecast HDMI dongle, and “thin client” solutions for homes that need multiple cable boxes. These same practices already exist, but they will now be mandatory as a part of Energy Star 3.0. This specification will make it so 90% of the purchases made by 2017 must follow the energy consumption rules.
These policies will be enforced by an annual field verification, in which 100 set-top boxes will be evaluated to ensure they follow the spec. On top of this, companies are encouraged to publish details regarding the amount of energy consumed by their products, which is similar to what we see in other consumer electronics groups already. It’s an all around positive agreement, and will lead to even more energy friendly devices in the household moving forward.
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After a study conducted by Ecova in 2011, it was discovered that in the US set-top boxes were responsible for $3 billion in energy use every year, a number which has only gone up since the study was first published. These set-top boxes were in more homes than ever before, acting as DVRs and streaming media devices and cable access consoles and, incredibly, this number didn’t include devices like the Roku, Apple TV, Google TV, or anything else that you might consider to be an STB alternative.
The National Resources Defense Council has been lobbying hard to see some changes made in the energy consumption rates of these devices, and it looks like an agreement has been made to accomplish exactly that.
Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirectTV, AT&T, and Motorola are on a list of companies who have come together with the NRDC to agree on energy sipping set-top boxes for the future. The deal will see a 10-45% in the power consumption rates of these set-top boxes, which is expected to save consumers $1B per year, or 5 million metric tons of carbon pollution by 2017.
We’ve seen a lot of the technology these companies plan to deploy in existence already. Devices capable of deep sleep modes when not in use, energy efficient processors like the ones seen in Google’s Chromecast HDMI dongle, and “thin client” solutions for homes that need multiple cable boxes. These same practices already exist, but they will now be mandatory as a part of Energy Star 3.0. This specification will make it so 90% of the purchases made by 2017 must follow the energy consumption rules.
These policies will be enforced by an annual field verification, in which 100 set-top boxes will be evaluated to ensure they follow the spec. On top of this, companies are encouraged to publish details regarding the amount of energy consumed by their products, which is similar to what we see in other consumer electronics groups already. It’s an all around positive agreement, and will lead to even more energy friendly devices in the household moving forward.
More...
