PS3's standby and off modes, (virtually) separated at birth

As useful as information found on the Internet can be, at times, it's also frustratingly myopic, resulting in moments when you have to take matters into your own hands.

Recently, my fiancee pleaded with me to start turning my PlayStation 3 off when it's not in use. Since the red standby light was on, she contended, the unit must be drawing significantly more power than if the unit was simply switched off via the power switch on the back.

Having just tested a couple dozen monitors as part of a CNET power consumption project, I felt I knew a bit about this and explained to her that the difference between standby and off was minuscule at best and that the savings for a whole year would be less than five bucks at the most.

That "1.5434" number represents the wattage average for the PS3 in standby. Pay no attention to the other numbers!

(Credit: Eric Franklin/CNET)

She remained adamant, and since I couldn't prove my point outright at that moment--and didn't feel like an argument--I let her win and said I'd start switching it off.

Unfortunately for her, I sometimes see compromising as losing--and I hate to lose.

So the next day I pursued the matter, as standby was too important to me to just give up on. Having your PS3 in standby lets you turn it on from the controller. The laziness in me couldn't let this slide, so I told my fiancee I'd prove that when the PS3 is on standby it draws, at the most, only slightly more power than when it's off.

I looked around the Internet for evidence to support my claim, but for the life of me I couldn't find a site that stated unequivocally that off and standby on the PS3 were close. Plenty of sites had numbers for the PS3's standby mode, but none--that I found--had any info on off mode. This surprised me, as I knew (from reading through plenty of gaming forums) that there are plenty of PS3 owners who switch off their consoles when not in use, and this info would be of use to them.

During the week, I procured a CNET house PS3 and tested it with the Chroma 66200 digital power meter, a high-end device that measures power consumption.

Now, for story purposes, this would be the perfect spot for a dramatic twist, a great place to reveal that "to my surprise, the PS3's standby mode drew significantly more wattage than its off mode," that I was "wasting a significant amount of money by keeping it in standby," and that "the crow I had for dinner that night tasted as I expected it to: frustratingly tough and bitter."

Well, sorry, but there are no surprises here. The cost of running a PS3 in off mode vs. standby for 365 days equaled a difference of $1.53 based on the 2008 $11.35 cents per kilowatt/hour national average. Point proven. Information now out on the Interwebs. (Note: I'm sure some people will be able to point to places on the Net where this info already exists. I didn't find it.)

Basically, it takes only a small amount of power--virtually the same amount the PS3 draws from the wall when off--to illuminate the PS3's red standby light and keep it in a state where it can be turned on via the controller.

My advice to those wondering how to treat their PS3 when not in use would be to put it in standby if it's only going to be off for up to a couple of days. The benefit of being able to turn it on and off from the controller is just too appealing to pass up. For some, however, $1.53 per year may be a deal breaker, and if so, as far as I know, there's no harm in switching it off after each session. Unless you count the harm in disappointing your lazy side. Still, turning it off completely--via unplugging, switching off the power strip, or using the PS3's switch is likely the most energy efficient way to go.

Although the ability to take one for the team can be a strength in any relationship, don't underestimate the power of being completely Rorschachian when it comes to compromise. Sometimes, there's no satisfaction like being proven right and getting your way.

[RockaTech]

You should make your wife pay the $1.53 for this year for questioning your claim =D

[chrkeller]

Wow, that is actually less than I would have guessed. I keep my ps3 in stand by mode, assuming it was $1 a month, not per year. I'd say it is obviously worth keeping in stand by given the insignificant difference in power draw.

[Renegade Knight]

Most of my equipment I turn off via a power strip entirly because "off" doesn't mean off. The exception is the PS3 and 360 because I have to set the clock and that's where my lazy side kicks in.

[Pard68]

Knight, not sure, but if you have XBL I think the clock sets itself, I have never set the clock on my 360.

Also, I was not aware the PS3 needs to be in a standby mode to turn on from the controller, always assumed it was like the 360 and Wii which just let you turn the controller on. Thats interesting and it kinda makes since, I guess to monitor if a controller is on or not does draw power, eh?

[Michichael]

Nooo! NOT MY LAZY SIDE!

Fun info - thanks for the actual numbers.

Now to your next task: Get rid of the Trojan and Cialis adverts all over the damned place. I'm checking this from work and my boss saw those ads and thought I was looking at porn. Took him a moment to realize it's CNET! Come on guys, do we really need ***** pills and condoms on a tech news website?

[stepyourgameup]

You should be looking at porn anyway!

[scythie]

adverts?? what are those??

oh right, I'm using Adblock Plus.

[lil-yankee]

yeah, you should be looking at porn i second that!

[xelanmetallium]

I agree about the ads. No more Trojan ads on a tech new site, please!

[Pard68]

Oh I find it funny, CNet, a site about technology, and computers and games has a condom ad, does anyone else see the humor in that?

[drbohner]

You couldn't even buy Trojan or Cialis - based on the savings of actually turning off the PS3. So, what the heck - leave it on. Either way - you are going to have a kid and she's still not going to get the pleasure out of it!

YES - BAG THE SEX ADS and give us ads that are related to what we are looking at (TECHNOLOGY)!

Let's have a Comment Fest - BAG THE ADS!

[tktnuri]

Granted that its only $1.53 a year but if that is turned on do you have it plugged into a power strip? I do and its connected to a stereo, TV (plasma), sub, ps2 and ps3 what would the overall cost of keeping all those items in standby?

I assume its a couple bucks a month so I turn off the entire strip heading out of the room once everything is powered down. Pretty easy when its connected to a switch by the time i sit down I grab the controller and can turn on the ps3.

[mediocrates--2008]

Handled like a true man, Eric. You brilliantly argued and proved the FACTS of the case... not recognizing that the discussion was really about your wife's need to feel more deeply connected to you by sharing her feelings regarding the management of the household.

It's going to be a lonely week for you, pal. :-)

[creatorman]

interesting way of looking @ situation;
> i would have thought it more about women,trying to control household; if she saw as such a problem to power prices; you would have thought she would have simply turned console off herself;

[jlt0x]

Thanks for the quick power info.

I'm sure many of us have a lot of electronics/A/V equipment (TV, stereo, computer, etc) that don't really "turn off" when we push the POWER button at night. My plasma TV always goes to Standby when "turned off". So does my stereo. These devices are not as simple as light bulbs. And it has been proven that LED power consumption is extremely minuscule in comparison to the weakest screw-in light bulb (that's why car makers like LED lights).

There are fundamental reasons why many of our devices have "standby modes" as opposed to OFF states. When you turn your computer or PS3 on, it must boot up and load files and scripts....this takes a few minutes...and additional power. When in standby, those files are already loaded and ready to go. No need to check the memory and OS system....just display & play.

It may come to many "wives" surprise that it would take more energy to turn off & turn on many of today's latest devices than to just let them go to standby and be waiting until we're ready to use them again. And many people say, "just be safe, unplug it"; but most of already know what unexpected power/static surges can do to electronic equipment....even components plugged into surge protectors.

[shofixti]

I use a Smart Strip from BITS Ltd. It's a power strip with 3 "always on" receptacles and 4 or 5 that are tied to one that's used as a control. When the device plugged into the control port is on, all the ports on the strip are on. When the "control" device is off, only the "always-on" ports are on, and the rest shut down.

For my living room setup, the TV is the control. Game systems and my receiver (my last one was a power hog in standby) are only powered when the TV is on. Tivo has power all the time.

Doesn't work for people who listen to music with the TV shut off, or want their Wii collecting messages while it's "off" (I'd have to break my meter back out to see what the Wii draws when it's in standby-collecting-messages mode, but it was not insignificant). I don't use my game boxes as messaging devices, so I don't really care.

[hansello]

Great article. Cheers.

Re: Multisockets. I recently purchased a set of four remote control plugs that allow me to switch off individual appliances from the comfort of my armchair. I leave the ps3 on standby, but it's nice to be able to switch off the plasma etc. without having to unplug them seperately.

Its understandable that its $1.53 per PS3, but lets assume there are 1 million PS3's in stand-by mode in US which makes 1.53 million $ / per year and look at amount of COAL burned to produce energy for it and just think of CO2 released based on it. Just a thought

[efranklin]

Indeed. You're not the only one to make this point and it is a good point. Switching it off completely is the most energy efficient way to go. I just added a sentence to make that point. Thanks.

[bridgerbot]

So my question to you is, how significant is one million dollars of coal? Do you think that if we burn 1 million less dollars of coal a year that we've solved the world's energy/pollution problems?

I maintain that would have little overall affect on anything. Rather than focus on tiny things that have little/no changing impact, it would be more productive to put your emphasis into promoting things such as "well if everyone of the 100 million households in the US put a small wind mill generator on their house, it might save them about $100+/year, more than pay for itself in a few years, and save hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars in burning coal".

Now 100 billion+ dollars / year, I believe things such as that have a significant changing impact, and it does about 10^5 times more than just shutting off the PS3. So rather than wasting our time worrying about the minor energy use of the PS3 we should be focusing on real issues.

[philrulez]

This includes the wireless adapter being on as well? Because every now and then I notice activity on the wireless light too, since it stays connected to the router. Or was this not taken into account in your test?

[efranklin]

I assumed the wireless adapter shuts off during standby unless there is an option to keep it on I don't know about, so no, this wasn't taken into account. I've never noticed any activity from wireless adapter on my PS3 during standby.

[mgillespie2]

If you enable Remote Play, then Wifi will be enabled in standby, so you can wake up the PS3 from your LAN, or via the internet.

I would like to know more. Was Wifi enabled? What were the actual power readings? What model PS3? (the new 80GB units are even more power efficiant that the old 60GB units, as they have 45nm processors.

[TheLe99]

Interesting, but I recommend plugging in a VCR or ALARM CLOCK to the same device too, so that you can give her a point of reference when talking about your numbers.

[planblove]

Wow, only in marriage will a man and woman argue and go to great lengths to prove a point over something so miniscule as the red light on the PS3. Not making fun of you either, my wife (who cares about the electricity bill but not THIS MUCH) and myself probably would have handled this the same way. But it'll never come this in my house. I've proabably got 5-6 things in the house that have standby lights on them.

[rpvitiello]

Well if she is so worried about the power of that device, i would say fine to switching it off, if you switch off EVERYTHING when not in use. the TV, the DVD player, the cable box, The microwave. They all are not "really off" but in standby drawing power so they can snap back to use insistently.

It seams foolish to only be worried about a PS3 when almost EVERYTHING in the house id drawing power like this.

[SanjayGolf]

You should do an article on how much is being wasted keeping a DVR on. Unlike a PS3 there is no standby mode for DVRs as it is always on even when the power button is not on. Seriously, who needs their DVR on at night while they're sleeping? What is there to record at 3 in the morning??? A lot of energy being wasted here.

[robd11]

"What is there to record at 3 in the morning??? "

Clearly, you are not a serious TV watcher.

I record plenty of movies in the middle of the night. And I record a lot of primtime too. How is this you ask? I thought primtime was 8-11pm? Well, yes it is. But I live on the east coast and my cable provider is kind enough to give me the west coast HD feeds as well. So I actually prefer to record the west coast feeds so as not clog up my 8-11pm slots. I can only record two shows at once and sometimes I've got two shows recording and I want to watch a third. Also, I like to flip. So recording the shows in the middle in the middle of the night works best.

So there you are, your DVR has to be always on.

[bridgerbot]

Great article Eric. I am going to reference this everytime I hear someone make statements about the energy consumption of standby devices.

[sheriff88]

I do not see "numbers" to compare the two modes (standby and off). I only see one number, and it's in dollars! You do not measure electricity consumption in dollars, you measure it in Amperes. And, to compare two modes, you need two measurements. Saying something (standby mode, in this case) is an insignificant difference from something else (off mode, in this case) requires presenting both bits of information. That was not done here.

TELL US how much current it draws in off mode, how much in standby? Take the difference of those numbers and, if necessary to inform the non-technical audience, convert the result to dollars...THAT is the relevant number in this investigation.

Let's get the science right before declaring victory.

[chickeee]

The caption said 1.5 Watts in standby mode. That's about 0.01 Ampere , OK? as in not much at all. I guess the off mode would be even less by the way ...

[bridgerbot]

Off mode takes 0 Amps of current, and 0 watts of power. In off mode, there is a small wire that moves so the wires are disconnected and current cannot flow through the circuit. That's the difference between "off" and "standby". Some devices do not have an off switch. The PS3 does have a simple off switch.

"Let's get the science right before declaring victory."

He got the science right. Your comment seems to be a misconception about what was meant by "off".

[ironbyron_hd]

Not only was the "off" number implied, but as others have replied the number for standby was given in watts. You do not measure "electricity" consumption in amperes as you cannot purchase amperes. You can purchase energy, and so you measure energy consumption. Energy is measured in Joules, but power is measured in Watts. A Watt is the equivalent of a Joule per second, so the more common energy representation is seen as killowatt-hours. This is simply a Joule times 3600000. Most people just take an average $/kwh price and skip the math so everyone can understand the "this-costs-this-much-for-this-long" approach, but I guess sometimes people need it spelled out entirely.

[jrm125]

Could you please do the test again with remote play enabled? I imagine it'll be substantially higher.

[partman1969]

Any of you so concerned about the carbon footprint and any other liberal goofball terms remember when your fathers and grandfathers had a good job ? Back in the 40s, 50s and 60s we made steel and cars and coal gave us all this reasonably attained electricity. Now China and other foreign nations get all the dirty air and manufacturing jobs. 30 years after the manufacturing jobs started leaving the United States we still have dirty air ??? We fine our remaining manufacturerers for carbon emissions choke the performance from our automobiles and give any remaining jobs to 3rd world countries. Tell me your sill worried about little red LEDs when you are standing in an unemployment line while the rest of the world is allowed t pollute manufacturing goods such as your PS3. [CNET editors' note: Personal attack deleted.]