Do Smart Lights Use Electricity When They’re Turned Off?

Smart home technology has absolutely changed the world. With all these gadgets, you barely have to worry about a thing these days; everything is automated. Not only does everything work by itself, but most of these appliances are great at saving energy too. Well, can you say the same for smart lights? While they conserve energy, do smart lights use electricity when turned off?

Smart lights use a minor amount of electricity when they’re off. This small amount will total up to just a penny or two on your monthly electricity bill.

Smart light bulbs; finding new popularity

Smart light bulbs are gradually finding popularity in the world of smart home enthusiasts. The fact that you don’t have to get up to turn them on or switch them off, rather can just command Alexa to do so, sets them apart from the regular ones. No matter whether you take the help from Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa, a simple command of yours can even dim them or change their color.

Nonetheless, this technological advancement is the sole reason they tend to leech electricity even when completely turned off. Though this amount of electricity used is low, it still tends to affect the electricity bill minutely.

Comparatively, regular bulbs do not use even a single unit of electricity when they are turned off.

The vampire appliance

A smart bulb falls in the category of vampire appliances. These appliances eat up electricity even when they are not working. On average, they can take up as much as 20% of the monthly electricity bill. They use standby power, and this affects electricity consumption.

Vampire appliances are never completely off! Rather when you are not using them, they are on a standby position, waiting for a command from you. This always keeps them half awake, and this “alert mode” uses some electricity.

Why do smart bulbs use energy while being turned off?

There are two reasons why smart bulbs always keep eating up electricity even when turned off. They include:

1. Smart bulbs always stay connected to the home Wi-Fi to be a part of Nest that makes all the appliances work in connectivity.
2. If not the Wi-Fi, the Bluetooth connection keeps the bulb connected to other appliances. As the Bluetooth must always stay active, it eats up some electricity.
3. Smart bulbs are always waiting for the next command. This doesn’t let them sleep.

The electricity used when the bulb is turned off

When the smart bulb is turned off, it doesn’t consume an exponential amount of electricity. Rather, the power consumed in such a situation is quite minimal. However, this amount is different for different models of bulbs. Each manufacturer has also set a different power consumption amount for each bulb.

Talking about an average estimate, a smart bulb may burn around 0.25 watts every hour. This is when it is turned off and is not working at all.

This is a very meager amount of energy consumed. Considering the rate of electricity in your country, it may take about 20% of the final bill to the maximum. It surely won’t consume more than this amount!

Is it a good deal?

If your house has only some smart bulbs, your electricity bill won’t be affected. A few bulbs do not take up much of the electricity in the house.

However, if you have filled your house with smart bulbs, they may end up eating up much of your electricity while being turned off. The cumulative amount of the lost electricity would be quite high.

In such a situation, you may not be able to save the money you had planned to save by installing the smart bulbs.

However, though it would still be a good plan for the overall ecosystem, it may ramp up your electricity bill a great deal.

Concluding on smart lights’ usage of electricity when turned off

The confusion of whether to go for the smart bulb despite knowing that it eats up electricity even while being turned off is a real one! You won’t be able to decide whether you are ready to pay for the extra power consumption or not.

However, compared to the advantages these smart bulbs offer, this small disadvantage is minimal. If you have a few smart bulbs in your home, the added amount of electricity used in your bill would be negligible!