Hacker News Reader

It's pretty odd to see all of these energy-saving LED bulbs being made "smart", totally killing the energy savings.

(Not to mention the Rube Goldberginess of needlessly using wifi when you could use a few million fewer transistors on existing wiring.)

View on HN

A 5W LED bulb that's equivalent to a 100W incandescent bulb is not having its savings killed by a 1W computer.

Depends on the duty cycle ... if it uses 1W all the time and is only on 5% of the time, then yes it is having its savings erased.

There's still significant savings at 5% usage:

100W * 5% * 24 Hours = 120Wh

1W * 24 Hours + 5W * 5% * 24 Hours = 30Wh

So it does depend on the duty cycle - As long as the 5W lightbulb with a 1W computer is used less than ~19 hours a day (80%) you'd still have savings:

1W * 24 Hours + 5W * 80% * 24 Hours = 120Wh

Reply on news.ycombinator.com