Re: Why not more enthused about Roku? (other devices)

Recently, Michael replied to a posting of mine, and said:
>
>> The benefit is that I can now listen to music anywhere in the house
>> without having to first go down to my office and fire up the PC (or
>> leave it on 24x7 which is unacceptable to me).
>
> But you leave the linkstation on? Why is that better?
> I leave all my PCs on 24/7. It's better for them.

Well, funny you should ask.  I put the Kill-A-Watt meter on my
LinkStation about a week ago and it seems to be averaging about 7.6
watts power draw (12 watts when running, and 5 watts when idle).  So,
in CA, where power can cost $.23/KWH (or more, especially if you have
lots of PCs and other things drawing power 24x7 such that you end up in
a higher cost bracket), that figures out to 182 watts per day, or 5.5
KWH per month, or a little over a buck's worth of power for the whole
month.

How much does your PC draw?  I'd guess no less than 10 times what the
LinkStation draws.  Compare that to a PC which could cost (here anyway)
$12/month to run 24x7.  Of course, power may be cheaper where you live,
but your PC may also draw more than 50 watts when sitting there doing
nothing other than warming your room, so I think $10-$15/month for a PC
running 24x7 is probably a reasonable estimate.

If you think about how many millions of computers there are on the
planet, running all the time, just so they're ready to go whenever you
need them (even if you don't use them much), there's a ton of wasted
power being generated and consumed all over.  It's really a shame.  :-(
--Steve