These days, everyone is looking for ways to cut down their electricity bill and save the environment a little bit too. Kambrook’s SmartSwitch aims to do both by switching off appliances that don’t need to be on throughout the day, removing them from standby and pulling the power until needed again.
To accomplish this, the SmartSwitch features two plug ports: one that’s always on and the other which kills the power after an hour of inactivity.
“The percentage of wasted energy in Australia is staggering,” said Kambrook’s Adam Tacey. “It’s a common occurrence to leave a television on when no one is watching it, which is a total waste of power and money.”
“Most people recognise that leaving equipment and appliances on standby uses a small percentage of power but they may be surprised to learn that just by switching off the TV at the power point they could be saving up to10% on their yearly electricity bill.”
Kambrook’s SmartSwitch joins the Belkin’s Conserve range with power saving technology now penetrating retail in an effort to make households greener and more cost effective.
The SmartSwitch comes in models for both home theatre and computer users, both retailing for $99.95 when they hit stores in September.
We’ve got the SmartSwitch AV here and will be putting it through testing shortly. Interestingly, the AV comes bundled with an infrared receiver to pick up on remote control signals to quickly switch back on devices that rely on IR, such as a PVR or TV.
Nice idea but I looked up a cost of a 42in plasma on standby, $0.0033/hour. That means it would take 30,000 hours of using this to pay for itself, perhaps it would be smarter and cheaper to switch off by hand
Finally a product designed to assist families to manage the power consumption including busy people with children. Having three kids with TVs, XBox’s, Playstations etc it should now be possible to manage the power consumption when not in use. One question though; “Will it be affordable to populate the house with Smartswitches?”
Darryl Kerrigan had it right, regarding price. At $100, they’re dreamin’. This smacks of typical Australian other-worldly ripping out of our consumers with absurd manufacturing prices. ‘Save up to $140 a year’, they say. HA! No, seriously, an eco switch for the benefit of ONE appliance at $100 – halucinatin’
Internal circuits will be dropping standby consumption to insignificance soon, anyway, so buy one now for your local museum. 😐
I have just received 4 (Yes 4) of these kambrook smart switch’s. 3 for T.V’s and audio equipment. ! for computer and computer accesories.
i just got my free switchsaver. Love the idea but if you dont change the channel on your tv, it turns it off. A bit annoying. Maybe if they had a timer on it would be more beneficial. eg, turn off tv when ppl go to bed???