Standby power is the electricity your devices consume while they’re plugged in but not actively being used. It goes by several names: vampire power, phantom load, or leaking electricity. That small trickle of power keeps clocks running, maintains network connections, and listens for remote control signals. Across developed nations, standby power accounts for roughly 2% of total electricity consumption.
Why Devices Draw Power When “Off”
Most electronics never truly turn off when you press the power button. Instead, they enter a low-power state that keeps certain internal functions alive. Your microwave’s clock display, your TV’s infrared sensor waiting for the remote, your game console checking for software updates overnight: all of these require a constant, small supply of electricity. Thermostats, refrigerators, and security systems rely on standby power to monitor conditions continuously, so some phantom load is genuinely necessary.
The issue is that many devices draw more standby power than they need to. A cable box or DVR, for example, can pull 27 to 30 watts even when you’re not watching anything, which is close to its full operating power. Multiply that by the dozens of plugged-in devices in a typical home, and standby consumption adds up fast.
How Much Power Common Devices Use
Modern TVs have gotten efficient in standby mode. Almost all TVs on the market today use less than 1 watt while waiting for a signal from the remote, and many need only 0.2 watts. A 32-inch LED TV draws around 1 watt in standby. Microwaves, with their always-on clock displays, pull about 3 watts continuously. Smart speakers sit in the range of 1.4 to 3.8 watts depending on the model, with the Google Home Mini at the low end (1.4 watts) and the Harman Kardon Invoke at the higher end (3.8 watts, using about 33 kilowatt-hours per year).
Streaming devices vary too. The Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV both sit below 1 watt in standby, while the Roku Ultra draws 2.7 watts. That sounds trivial, but these devices spend most of their lives in standby mode, so even small differences compound over a year. A PlayStation 5 in rest mode continues drawing power for updates and controller charging unless you manually disable those features.
One surprising finding from NRDC testing: linking a smart speaker to certain TVs so you can wake them with voice commands caused the TV’s standby power to jump from under 1 watt to between 18.8 and 22.9 watts continuously. That single connection could add meaningful cost to your electricity bill. Newer TV models have brought this down to 1 to 2 watts while still supporting voice wake, but older sets may still have the problem.
The Cost and Environmental Impact
Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that standby power in the residential sector of OECD countries (the world’s wealthier economies) consumes 124 terawatt-hours of electricity per year. That’s 1.5% of those countries’ total electricity use. When you add commercial buildings with their own standby loads, the figure approaches 2%.
That electricity generation produces roughly 68 million tons of CO2 annually, accounting for just under 1% of total energy-related carbon emissions across OECD nations. For an individual household, estimates typically place the annual cost of standby power somewhere between $100 and $200, though the exact figure depends on how many devices you own, their age, and your local electricity rate. In a home with several older set-top boxes, a couple of game consoles, and a handful of smart devices, standby loads can easily total 50 watts or more around the clock.
The One-Watt Standard
The International Energy Agency launched its “One Watt Initiative” to push manufacturers toward limiting standby power to 1 watt or less per device. The goal was never a hard cap on every single product but rather a fleet average, acknowledging that some devices would come in well under a watt while others might need slightly more. This initiative influenced efficiency regulations in multiple countries and is a major reason modern TVs now idle at fractions of a watt instead of the 5 to 15 watts that older plasma and CRT sets commonly drew.
How to Measure Your Phantom Loads
If you want to know exactly what your devices are drawing, a plug-in electricity monitor like the Kill A Watt meter lets you measure the power consumption of anything with a standard outlet plug. You plug the meter into the wall, plug your device into the meter, and it displays real-time wattage. Many public libraries lend these monitors for free, or you can buy one at most electronics stores for around $20 to $30. Testing each device takes only a minute: turn the device “off” with its normal power button and read the standby draw on the meter’s display.
Reducing Standby Power at Home
The simplest approach is unplugging devices you’re not using, but that’s impractical for things like your router or DVR. A smarter solution is a smart power strip, which monitors the power draw on a designated “control” outlet. When the device on that outlet drops into standby mode (triggering a power consumption decrease), the strip’s circuitry detects the change and cuts power to the other connected outlets automatically. When you turn the main device back on, the strip senses the increase and restores power to the accessories.
For a home entertainment setup, this means plugging your TV into the control outlet and your soundbar, streaming stick, and game console into the switched outlets. When you turn off the TV, the strip kills power to everything else, eliminating their standby draw entirely. The strip also includes a few “always on” outlets for devices like your router that need constant power.
If you don’t want to invest in smart strips, a regular power strip with a physical switch works fine. Flipping it off before bed or when leaving the house cuts standby power to zero for every device on the strip. You can also check your devices’ settings individually. Game consoles, smart TVs, and set-top boxes often have “eco mode” or “deep sleep” options that significantly reduce standby draw at the cost of slightly longer wake-up times.
Disabling features you don’t use makes a difference too. If your PlayStation 5 doesn’t need to download updates overnight or charge controllers while in rest mode, turning those features off drops its idle consumption substantially. The same goes for the network standby feature on smart TVs, which is often the reason they draw 20 watts instead of 0.2 watts when paired with a voice assistant.