Not two months after I switched energy provider, my new supplier announced a price hike. A pretty big one, as it happens. What’s most galling about that is that one of the reasons I chose them in the first place was that they’d just gone through one increase already, which I assumed would mean any further change in their rates would be a good year off at least.

I’m on a green tariff where all of my bills go towards providing hydroelectric power, and the plan came bundled with an energy monitor that tracks every watt as it’s used. Having it beside the TV blinking away every time you boil the kettle or wash your clothes certainly helps you focus on your usage, which is where Bye Bye Standby comes in. It’s three plug adaptors and a remote control that lets you switch your appliances on and off from the comfort of an armchair.

It sounds like the height of laziness, but actually it makes good sense. If you want to actually switch off my TV you have to either unclip all of its back panels to get to its master power switch, or clamber around behind some furniture, the upshot being that you’re more likely to use standby and waste power every time you head out or up to bed.

Now I can switch it off at the plug – along with the digibox, DVD and everything else plugged into the same extension – with the press of a single button, because that extension lead is plugged into the Bye Bye Standby adaptor. At the same time I can switch off the lights by pressing red button two (or switch them on with green button two, which impresses visitors) and switch the broadband router on and off from downstairs (it’s upstairs in the study) with buttons red three and green three.

Each unit has the capacity to control up to eight plugs without changing the channel by switching between groups one and two on the front of the control, and new plugs can be bought individually or in packs to expand your set-up. Each has a simple 1-2 toggle on the side that assigns it to one group or the other.

Now, as I head to bed at night or leave the house in the morning I just press each red button in turn and know for definite that everything is switched off. The packaging promised annual savings of more than double the asking price, which may be a little optimistic in my case as I’ve always been quite good about switching things off properly, but now that it’s become a part of my life, and control of all of my sockets has been centralised in a slimline control small enough to lose down to the back of a cushion, I wouldn’t want to go back to the old way of working.

Price £20 – £25 for three-plug kit including remote (£17.28 from Amazon).
Pros Centralises the controls of every gadget in your home. Quicker than turning off everything in turn.
Cons None.
Verdict The smartest, easiest way to save energy – and money – in the home.

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