HACKER Q&A
📣 egberts1

On-Demand Phone Charger


When you have 6 phone chargers around the house, napkin-math is showing me $22.00/month in electric bill.

Not to nitpick, but surely there is a charger out there in the marketplace that can apply electrical load once the iPhone/Android gets connected to the charger. That is assuming that Energy Saving Trust accurately assert that it is eating electric cost wether the device is connected or not. [1]

Perhaps with a big zenier diode or something instead of an always-on wounded transformer coil sucking electricity …

Is there such a thing? I could imagine some type of mechanical (or even electronic) relay to kick in that coiled transformer load but as a tiny consumer product?

Does one exist? If so, how would one search for such a product on search engines?

Napkin Math:

35W/hour (rated phone charger)

24 hours x 365 days (always on)

306.6kW/year, total usage (1 charger)

$0.149/kWh electric rate

$45.68 per charger

or $274.10 annual electric bill for six(6j chargers

of course, Energy Saving Trust claims the chargers are essentially always on, whether you have the device connected or not.

[1] http://monopolybuysellrent.co.uk/advice/energy-saving-tips/


  👤 gus_massa Accepted Answer ✓
Note that a cell phone charger use 5-10W when the cell phone is charging, but it uses only 0.1W or less when the cell phone is not connected. I can't get official numbers, but this article has some info https://www.howtogeek.com/231886/tested-should-you-unplug-ch...

👤 detaro
what's your napkin math? because switching PSUs if well-done are pretty darn efficient even if idle (and the most efficient topology overall)