Monitor saves power on standby
HARDWARE maker Fujitsu Siemens has come up with a monitor which does not need any power to run in stand-by mode.
With the UK set to ban stand-by mode because it is a waste of lecky, Fujitsu Siemens have hatched out a plan which means that its monitors will not suffer.
Using the technology, a relay cuts off the mains power whenever the video stream stops. Capacitors store enough charge to flick the relay back when the signal returns and solar panels provide enough power to maintain zero consumption mode for up to five days. If you have not switched on after that time you will need to press a regular power button to bring the machine out of standby.
According to PCW, Siemens plan to install the technology into tellies too. It has applied for six patents covering the technology and the first monitors using it will go on sale next spring. µ
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One wonders if the energy needed to make the additional capacitors, relays, control circuits and certainly not least - the solar panels, outweighs the lifetime standby power.
So they've shifted the standby carbon footprint of it?

Whilst it was in standby it uses a little bit of 'lecky'.

Now they've add extra resources like capacitors, semiconductors,resistors, a relay, solar panels, etc. which also costed 'lecky' to make and therefore consumed carbon to make and install.

I wonder which costs the less carbon?

Bet they wouldn't tell.... ;-)

This product is a feeble attempt to make it appear as though they are saving the environment, while in actuality they are not helping the environment at all, but instead are simply trying to conform to a law that was created to try and make it appear as though it is saving the environment.
"...and solar panels provide enough power to maintain zero consumption mode for up to five days" - shows what a state solar power technology is in!
A capacitor has to charge up and hold that power for upto 5 days? Then that stored charge is used to flip the relay to energize the Monitor from the mains?

I have a design that is so low power that it draws power from the video signal. When the video signal is present it switches in the mains providing just enough power to a secondary switch which causes the primary switch (relay) to energize and power the Monitor. The idea being that the secondary switch required too much power to operate from the video signal, but only needs enough power to energize the primary switch not the entire monitor.

The first circuit runs on less than 1 micro-amp at 1.8volts, that works out to about 1.8 microwatts (a bit high when compared with today's nanowatt circuits) which is easily powered by the video signal. It provides enough power to turn on a switch (MOSFET) which can either power the monitor (provide up to 10 amps with a big enough heatsink) or what I did was to energize the primary switch (a relay requiring a few hundren milli-amps). This way the big heat sink isnt' needed.

This pretty much makes the standby time to be 1.8 microwatts. It stands by forever (no 5 day limit), automatically enters standby when there is no video signal, and automatically wakes up when the video is present. With out a need for capacitors or solar cells. 

Not including the main relay the cost in parts (quantity 1, not the usual 1K or 10K quantities that manufacturers buy in) is under 1 USD and some circuit board space. Once the economy of scale kicks in the cost is nearly nothing.
. . . such comment on "being green", unfortunately all made by people using what is possibly the least green thing on this planet : computers.
Using a relay to cut the mains is a much better way of doing standby than the current methods that seem to leak up to a watt of power. I've been wanting mobile phone chargers to do this for ages.