Internet box consumption, how much does your ISP box consume?

With soaring electricity prices, there is a question that is swirling everywhere: how to save money? And there is an answer that we often hear and which the high political sphere has taken to heart: turn off the wifi of individuals at night. Good idea or wrong idea? We will try to answer it.

In order to shed light on this proposal, we decided to carry out an experiment to measure the consumption of internet boxes. Operator widely present on the French territory, we are therefore interested in the 2 most widespread models the Livebox 3 (also called livebox play) and Livebox 4.

And to carry out this test and measure the power consumption of this product, what better than the latest version of the connected plug from Konyksthe Priska Max 3. Thus, via the application, we will be able to retrieve the daily consumption of the equipment.

Regarding this time the cost of electricity, we stopped on the regulated rate of EDF and an average installation of 12 kVA which corresponds to a house with 4 bedrooms and electric heating. We are also going to compare 2 situations, namely an installation with a basic rate and another with the Peak Hours / Off-Peak Hours option on the 10 p.m.-6 a.m. slot (i.e. 8 hours of off-peak hours and 14 hours of peak hours per day ).

Measurements obtained.

We let the application save the data for 45 days to offer you the results below.

So already, it is not easy to read in the application since the consumption of these devices is not high. The instantaneous power consumed by a Livebox 3 is around 8.1 W for an intensity of 61 mA against 8.1 and 69 mA for the livebox 4.

Per day, this makes, for the test period, an average of 0.19 kWh for the Livebox 3 against 0.21 kWh for the Livebox 4.

Per week, we are on a consumption of 1.33 kWh in Livebox 3 against 1.47 kWh for Livebox 4.

We had the opportunity to do the same test with a Fritz brand Wi-Fi repeater that we had tested previously. No miracle either since our readings remain close to the consumption of a Livebox 4 with 0.21 kWh per day. The variations in consumption, even minimal, will be to blame for the number of Wi-Fi devices that will be connected at the same time since, at that time, the box will have to increase the power of the Wi-Fi transmitter but still once, the change in consumption is often imperceptible.

The FRITZRepeater 6000 tri-band WIFI6 with its three radio units, which together can achieve a data rate of up to 6000 MBits, is able to establish a stable connection and provide…

Calculation of consumption.

And so, with all the data, what can we do? Already, let’s start by calculating what the electricity consumption of our boxes costs us over different periods. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, we applied the regulated EDF tariff to our measurements to obtain the following result.

Reduce your electricity bill

Based on the calculations we obtained, we decided to choose several scenarios to see what it would be possible to save on our electricity bill by cutting the box.

• Box cut 6H: Between 00.00 and 6.00.

Box cut 1 day:

Box cut 2 weeks:

Conclusion

What about this analysis report. We find in the end that our internet boxes are not, at the scale of our household, the consumer of current and those which weigh down our budget. It must be said that these devices, on a transformer, consume much less than a fast mobile phone charger which will deliver 65W for 2 hours for example.

It is also important to remember that an unplugged internet box means no more internet, no more VoIP telephones and no more IP television. The most disturbing will of course be the telephony because in the event of an emergency, you will have to wait for the box to restart and for the internet connection to be established to call and in the opposite direction, this means that you are no longer reachable on your telephone number. internet phone during this time.

In addition, another detail should not be neglected, that of home automation. Indeed, in the case of a connected house and operator of home automation, switching off the BOX also leads to putting all your home automation “in the dark”.

For the legislator, the question arises on the scale of the whole territory with figures which will then indeed question. But during the day, we need our internet access whether for television, internet browsing, emails or children’s tablets. If there must be savings, it would be by unplugging these devices at night. However, at night, our production system is not under supply voltage, on the contrary since we are encouraged to shift our consumption for domestic hot water, the washing machine, the dishwasher over this off-peak period.

Note, however, that the idea remains fixed in the minds of our decision-makers since Arcep, the Electronic Communications Regulatory Authority, announced the launch of a new protocol on January 5, 2023 aimed at measuring the electricity consumption of internet boxes, Wi-Fi repeaters and TV decoders.

This protocol will make it possible to compare this information between equipment and to inform users of the factors that influence the electrical consumption of this equipment. It is part of the “For sustainable digital” program launched by Arcep in 2020. The electricity consumption of internet boxes will be measured in specific situations, such as when connected to one or more PCs with Wi-Fi. Fi on or off and with varying traffic levels.

For TV decoders, consumption will also be measured in various situations, such as standby, watching a live TV channel, watching a replay or using a streaming service. Finally, for Wi-Fi repeaters, consumption will be measured when idle, when a client is connected, or when used with PCs on Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 5. We now look forward to the results of their study.

In the end, we could therefore conclude that cutting off our BOX and our Wi-Fi equipment to save money is a FALSE GOOD IDEA.