Sunday, July 15, 2007

Apple TV's power consumption

The Apple TV is a nice addition to any HDTV setup. It's currently the hottest setup component we have next to the PS3. Taken literally, that's because the TV is always on and lacks any form of active cooling, leaving it very warm to the touch. While this is worrying from the perspective of power consumption, it turns out that I should be more worried about the 60 watt incandescent bulb above my head.

According to Apple Support forum-user rverwij, the Apple TV consumes about 14 watts in standby and between 17 and 19 watts while in use. The reason the Apple TV is always on is probably to increase responsiveness and to sync your content so quickly you don't have to ever manually intervene. Another reason might be to avoid startup times or even to reduce what could be constant wear and tear of booting and shutting down. This doesn't make it energy-start compliant, though, as rverwij also points out.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind going back in time to defer my purchase of the Apple TV, since clearly the best is yet to come. I also believe that to be the case with the iPhone, which I returned it unopened a week after purchasing it on release day.*

SOURCE: Apple Support Discussions

Updated 10:16 AM EDT: * The official reasons I returned the iPod[iPhone]: 1) I never really intended to buy it. 2) I just got a new 30 G iPod in February. 3) It doesn't have a killer feature like the Unix terminal. 4) I still have a contract with my current wireless provider Verizon Wireless that ends in October. 5) ...

Updated (March 28, 2011): This post applies to the First Generation Apple TV. The newer Apple TV is smaller and more more power efficient than the original and only consumes 6-watts (it only has a 6-watt power supply). 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

>>which I returned it unopened a week after purchasing it on release day.

it sounds so cool man!!!

Will said...

Hey, at least I can buy it again if I wanted unlike some other people living in inconvenient places :) BTW, I just posted a little addendum that helps explain why I didn't keep it.

I'm still working on fully understanding your post about the iPhone. I wasn't sure you were totally impressed by it or just speaking in general terms about smartphones.

Anonymous said...

I was actually blaming the local (HK) tele companies.

The case of local mobile market is that, the licenses issued by the gov makes the tele com stop improving. They are selling 3G phones which tied with its own browser and can only browse selected webpages. Should I access this blog on my phone, I will be paying much more than a penny.

As they need to generate income from selling media services, youtube could be accessed only if they charge you on a per kb basis.

all in all, the cost structure makes it financially infeasible for an average citizen to enjoy the Internet on the phone.

And I just think that iPhone can break this because combining it with FON network and some commerical wireless hotspots, surfing the Net on phone will be much much cheaper, which I wish would lead to a price cut of mobile charges and free me from a strange browser.

Will said...

It is ironic that you would get super fast access to a limited amount of stuff whereas with AT&T and iPhone, you get slow access to everything including YouTube.

How much is a data plan in HK? Verizon, which has a faster EVD0 network charges twice as much as AT&T just for a "smartphone" plan. I guess they feel it's safe to offer unlimited access because you used to only be able to do so much on a phone.

Anonymous said...

3G plan costs usually from 15USD to 20USD per mo.

Data plan is on top of a 3G plan and cost from 5USD(about 20MB/d of selected sites) to 15USD (unlimited access to selected sites). Data to non-selected site is on top again.

And I just figure out that all data sent via the special browser is indeed sent via a proxy.

Many features are included in the local plans, like MSN mobile, Yahoo News, RSS reader. Of coz, they need additional costs. And I think I dont want to pay these, if I can access the Net freely.

Will said...

Wow, that special browser does suck. For reference, the AT&T plan (non-3G) is 40+20 for data and the VZW plan is 40+40 for data which is unlimited. I should note that if you had a notebook computer 3G model, the fine print says you can only use it for browsing and email (not bt for example).

Will said...

It's unlimited to any site via http I guess. Keep in mind the pricing is just for smart phones. I'm actually quite interested in the Palm Foleo, which uses your smartphone's connection.

You're seriously abusing your Gmail...