Intelliplug: review

Standby is the self-sufficientist’s enemy. If you ever want to start generating your own electricity, you can’t afford to waste it on illuminating a standby light. That’s why we’re fans of Bye Bye Standby, the little remote control set that lets you switch off your gadgets once and for all without scrabbling around for the socket.

Now we’ve added the OneClick Intelliplug to our set-up, banishing standby in our office, as well as the lounge. It’s entirely passive, you see, so you don’t even need to think about turning off your peripherals any more.

The plug – a grey box that plugs into a regular wall socket – has three ports for plugs. You plug in your primary device into the one on the top, and your peripherals in the other two sockets.

Your device in the master socket then becomes the key to controlling all of your other add-ons.

We tested it using a Mac (it’s just as happy with a PC) and attached an external storage device, plugging the powered drive into one of the peripheral sockets and the Mac into the one on top. We could just as easily have plugged in two full extension cables of devices and they would all have been controlled by the Mac.

We switched on the Mac, and the drive duly powered up five seconds later. It was ready for use by the time the Mac had finished booting. Switching off the Mac did the same in reverse, safely powering down the drive five seconds after the Mac had switched off and the drive unmounted.

OneClick claims that this device, which costs just shy of £20 RRP (£7.64 on Amazon), can reduce your power consumption by as much as 35W an hour, and pay for itself inside of a year. It ships with a warranty that covers that period, but the makers claim it should keep on running for 15 years or more.

Is it a worthwhile addition? Absolutely. The 35W hourly saving is ambitious, and it relies on you having a lot of standby-hungry devices plugged in at once, but this remains the only way you can switch off everything on your desk with a click of the mouse. Combine it with Bye Bye Sandby and you’ll never see a standby light again.

Price £19.99
Pros A simple way to control all of your devices with a single button or mouse. Can deliver real cost savings. Available for much less than the RRP if you shop around.
Cons None

Related posts:

1. Bye Bye Standby: review
2. Can you save money while charging your phone?
3. Roberts solarDAB : review
4. Energy consumption monitors
5. Batteries and the environment

Tagged as: electricity, energy, power