# TiVo Power Usage



## ColinYounger

I have a Smartmeter, and according to the stats, the VM TiVo is 3KWh a day more efficient than the S1.

In other words, the power usage when I'm not in the house (i.e when Fridge and TiVo are running) is 3KWh a day less.

YMMV.


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## Queb

ColinYounger said:


> I have a Smartmeter, and according to the stats, the VM TiVo is 3KWh a day more efficient than the S1.
> 
> In other words, the power usage when I'm not in the house (i.e when Fridge and TiVo are running) is 3KWh a day less.
> 
> YMMV.


I assume that this due to no extra external set top box for say freeview and the box being more efficient ?


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## ColinYounger

I've assumed two boxes into one would make a bit of a difference, but I think the S1 was a bit of a power hog. I wasn't expecting 3KWh *per day*. That's loads!


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## stephforfun

I just figured out how to join and now am joining, glad to be in! I search forward to partcipating and have study a whole lot so far, so hello! 

I've been involved without much expertise in the internet and have identified this site to have a great deal improved subject material, so it helps make sense to last but not least post! 

PS, how do I get emails sent to me if there is a reply? I just got a new phone, even a dietician requires so much to keep up to date!


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## royfox

Stepforfun,,

Firstly welcome.. 

To get the emails back to you from any threads you are interested in.. quite easy..
go to the top of the thread page and you will see a drop down box which says 
"thread tools". click that and a drop down choice of subscribe will be there.

Also.. if you post a reply, you have the same option to have an instant email sent to you just under the bit you are writing..


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## Buzby

3KW a day? That's 125w (per hour). My device reported my S1 consuming 40w in standby and 45w 'live' and using its modem. Averaged, this amounts to 960w per day, and a third of your 3Kw. 

Do you have a toaster option?


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## ColinYounger

I thought it strange too - but I'm consistently 3KWh down every day. This is output from my smart meter that the power company use to charge me, not a device to measure power usage.


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## VirginMediaPhil

royfox said:


> Stepforfun,,
> 
> Firstly welcome..
> 
> To get the emails back to you from any threads you are interested in.. quite easy..
> go to the top of the thread page and you will see a drop down box which says
> "thread tools". click that and a drop down choice of subscribe will be there.
> 
> Also.. if you post a reply, you have the same option to have an instant email sent to you just under the bit you are writing..


I think stephforfun is a spam account; very generalised comments and very not English good. (  )


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## Buzby

ColinYounger said:


> I thought it strange too - but I'm consistently 3KWh down every day. This is output from my smart meter that the power company use to charge me, not a device to measure power usage.


But as a smart meter, isn't that your total load? I don't think they split out individual sockets as they're not individually addressable....?


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## M_at

Buzby said:


> But as a smart meter, isn't that your total load? I don't think they split out individual sockets as they're not individually addressable....?


Virgin powered by Tivo = TiVo (Energy hungry first generation unit) + Cable Box.

So each Virgin powered by TiVo is replacing 2 boxes in a S1 household.

Depending on the cable box and setup of the TiVo (Second drive etc) it's possible that the new box is consuming that much less but it's a fair whack I agree.


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## Tony Hoyle

I've not noticed much drop in load, replacing V+ plus SkyBox + S1 with 2 Tivos.. I'd certainly notice a 125w drop! If I were to hazard a guess It's maybe 20w difference.


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## jonphil

I was thinking the Tivo would use less power than the SkyHD box but I can't really tell.
I also have a smartmeter but can't see much difference in power usage. The only way to tell would be a plug power meter.


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## laurence

ColinYounger said:


> In other words, the power usage when I'm not in the house (i.e when Fridge and TiVo are running) is 3KWh a day less.
> 
> YMMV.


That sounds a lot - is it, in money terms I mean? Still trying to justify the cost of new TiVo, and (as Tesco puts it) every little helps.


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## PeteM

[email protected] said:


> That sounds a lot - is it, in money terms I mean? Still trying to justify the cost of new TiVo, and (as Tesco puts it) every little helps.


If it were true that would be a saving of over £10.00 a month, easily justifying the extra TiVo sub!

But it can't be... Colin must have other factors at work.

To give some perspective, if I leave home for an extended period, and turn everything off except TiVo S1, Samsung STB, cable modem and wireless router, my daily consumption averages 1.6 units (KWh).

If Colin is seeing a 3KWh difference just by powering down his S1, then either. as Buzby says, it's in toaster mode, or there's something else skewing the data...


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## scgf

Remember the S1 TiVo was essentially a computer and built in the days when we weren't so bothered about power consumption. I know there is a huge difference between many computers bought today and those bought several years ago. I have a standard PC that uses 200w constantly in standby whereas my iMac uses around 2.7w in standby!


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## big_dirk

around £0.67 per day for me, not to be sniffed at! cheers for the info OP :up:


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## ColinYounger

A few more days on, and I'm still consistently 3kWh down.

One thing that I might be doing that you're not - I put TiVo in standby when I'm not watching it.

My power company charges me 10p/kWh. So that's 30p/day, £2.10/wk, £8.40/mth, £100/pa.

That's not insignificant.


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## Technix

Reported as 20W on Cable Forums, so not much more than the V+. V+ consumes 12W when in standby and the HDD spun down.


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## warrenrb

Colin,

I assume you removed some kind of set-top box as well, when you removed your S1, and replaced it with VM TiVo?

So the drop would be your S1 + a set-top box?


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## mdolan

I noticed this too. I have an Electrisave and a remote logger on my server. Prior to new Tivo setup, my house baseline was 220 Watts (i.e. with everything off that I could switch off that would give the minimum running power of the house).

Since moving to the new Tivo, its dropped to 144 Watts. 

This was:
1) Remove Series 1 Tivo (unknown power)
2) Remove Virgin Media set-top cable box (not a V+) - (unknown power)
3) Remove a redundant signal booster (previously measured at 10 Watts)
4) Add the new Tivo.

So that's a net reduction of 76 Watts. (Yeah, I know the Electrisave resolution isn't fantastic but it's good enough for these purposes). 

1 Watt continual power over a year works out roughly £1.

Therefore new TiVo = a continual year on year saving of £76 from the electric power bill. Yes, I pay a little extra to Virgin Media but I'm still making a significant net saving. And I get more channels, HD, dual tuners, no missed recordings due to missed channel changes on IR wands etc.


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## Tony Hoyle

I'd kill to get a house baseline of 144 watts  I drive SWMBO nuts by unplugging things and switching stuff off and still can't get below 500.. (although about 200 of that is the file server).

I've not seen anything close to that saving. Having looked at it over the last few days I'd say the saving is near zero on my previous rig - replacing V+, Tivo and old Sky box with 2xTivo. 

I remember measuring that the old S1 was quite thirsty, though.


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## tankstage

I'd kill to get a house baseline of 500 watts  Its difficult to get below 1200 for me....

I have removed 2 x S1 TiVo , one freeview box and replaced a V box with TiVo and I have not seen any reduction.


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## Brangdon

jonphil said:


> The only way to tell would be a plug power meter.


I have one. It says the VM TiVo uses 18-21 watts, usually 19 or 20. It doesn't reduce when in stand-by (and I wouldn't expect it to). This is consistent with the figure mentioned in #18.

My old TiVo measures at around 31w. #6 says 40w; I don't know why my figure is so much lower.

I can't measure my what my old set-top box used because the engineer took it away.


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## geekspeak

Brangdon said:


> I have one. It says the VM TiVo uses 18-21 watts, usually 19 or 20. It doesn't reduce when in stand-by (and I wouldn't expect it to).


I wonder why Virgin Media are advertising it as having "low power standby" then 

http://tivo.virginmedia.com/tivoupgrade/features


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## Brangdon

That is strange, and makes me think my measurement may be wrong. On the other hand, since even in stand-by it has to do the work of receiving programmes and writing them to disk, and it has to listen for remote control buttons, and it has to do timed events. It can't reduce its power by very much in standby.


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## jonphil

geekspeak said:


> I wonder why Virgin Media are advertising it as having "low power standby" then
> 
> http://tivo.virginmedia.com/tivoupgrade/features


Suppose it depends on what it's being compared with.
I wouldn't have a clue how much my SkyHD box used. Can't imagine it being 'low power'
Also depends on the rules around what can be called 'low power' I suppose?

Wikipedia claims a SkyHD+ box consumes 50-55w (no difference in Standby)
So 21w for the Tivo is a lot less than Sky


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## TCM2007

TiVo's continue to buffer live TV when in standby (at least S1s do) so the only change in standby is the video output stage is turned off.


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## geekspeak

Brangdon said:


> That is strange, and makes me think my measurement may be wrong. On the other hand, since even in stand-by it has to do the work of receiving programmes and writing them to disk, and it has to listen for remote control buttons, and it has to do timed events. It can't reduce its power by very much in standby.


My media centre uses less than one watt in standby and wakes itself up in time for any recordings and if the remote is used. If I want it to buffer, I leave it on, if not, I don't. I would be quite happy for suggestions to not record in standby and I almost never use the buffer. 20 watts isn't too bad but personally I would have liked a "proper" standby.


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