Donât sweat it.
Weâre not going to shame you into stopping the usage of your streaming services entirely.
Instead, simply learn how streaming services affect your electricity usage. And learn what you can do to reduce their electricity usage if youâre concerned about how much they use.
First, understand how quickly streaming services can multiply and use a surprising amount of electricity.
Take a look at the full list of possibilities:
Whew! Thatâs quite a list.
How many of those do you use in your own home?
So, what precisely causes more electricity use. Hereâs a list, beginning with the largest reason for higher electricity use:
1. Standby Power
While devices are designed for energy efficiency today, standby mode is the silent killer of energy efficiency.
For example, connecting smart speakers to your television causes its electricity usage to more than double during the course of a year!
Standby power from other devices may not consume quite so much. But it does have a similar effect.
When youâre done with a device, simply turn it off. Consider plugging as many devices as you can into a smart power strip so you can turn them all off with the press of one button.
2. Device Displaying the Streaming Media
Smart TVs are built with streaming services in mind. Simply by their very construction, they save 25% electricity versus traditional TVs.
3. How Much Data You Stream Each Month
An early 2019 study found the average household uses about 268.7 GB of data per month. The percentage of households using 1 TB or more grew from 2.11% in 2017 to 4.12% in 2018.
Thatâs almost double.
Some ISPs, like Comcast, charge additional fees when you exceed 1 TB in a month.
4. Quality of the Streamed Media
If you watch something in 4K or listen to it in HD sound quality, that uses a lot more electricity.
5. Number of Devices
Growing family? That increases your streaming media usage too.
Besides turning off streaming media when not in use, also consider creating usage limits for children.
Not only does that save you money and electricity, but itâs healthy for your kids to have their minds in the real world rather than digital screens all the time.
And join in with your kids too. Monitor your own usage and limit it. Movies, TV, video games, and music are exciting. But thereâs lots of fun you can have in the real world too!
Streaming services can be a hidden electricity consumer.
Hopefully this post helped you understand how your streaming services may affect you and what you can do about them.
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