Gadgets do not cost much to juice up; an iPad runs to $1.36 a year at the U.S. average residential price of electricity. [Jonathan Fahey/AP]

  • http://dbcooper.livejournal.com P.F. Bruns

    “ruls”?

    #corrections

  • planettom

    “an iPad ruls to $1.36 a year…”

    Ok, even when I read this in an Inspector Closeau voice, I got nothing.
    What is this verb ruls?  

    • Antinous / Moderator

      You can rul, but you can’t hiye.

  • ROSSINDETROIT

    This is true.  I’m working on a project that can run off of alkaline batteries or a wall adapter.  The 9V battery costs $1 – $5 and will last a few hours.  The wall adapter costs $13 and will consume about $0.30/year in electricity.  It’s not difficult to see the payback point for going with wall power.

  • http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

    AH MEAN RANS. RANS! /clouseau

  • TheKaz1969

    I don’t have an iPad, but is only charging every-other-day reasonable? if people were to begin to replace TV/Movie watching, and not just video game playing, would it still be reasonable?

    That’s not to say that the price per hour is still not better, but it would throw off the “yearly” number.

    Also, is it really reasonable to compare iPad electricity usage to that of a refrigerator? When Apple can get me an iPad to keep my food cool, let me know. then I am on board! :)

  • brianary

    Except if you have a transformer plugged in all of the time, it draws power constantly.

    Besides, who’s going to use the same iPad for a whole *year*? #upgrade ;)

  • http://vinnietesla.com/ Vinnie Tesla

    Key phrase: “funded by electric utilities.”

    “For the iPad test, Vairmohan measured the amount of power used to charge up an iPad with a drained battery. ”

    Do you keep your chargers unplugged when they aren’t attached to your devices?  Or do you let the transformer go pretty much 24/7?

  • penguinchris

    I have one of those Kill-A-Watt devices and when I lived in a studio apartment for a while I ran it in front of a power cable that ultimately led to all of my non-appliance electronics (two laptop computers, a PS3, an LCD monitor, a 5.1 stereo system, and power supplies and chargers for loads of gadgets including several hard drives etc.)

    95% of the non-appliance power I used went through that thing – and I was using that stuff easily 12+ hours a day – and at expensive California rates I was only using something like $5 a month of electricity. Obviously it would have been a different story if I had a tower computer and a big TV – laptops in particular are surprisingly efficient compared to towers – but still, electricity is damn cheap.

    Don’t know how much the fridge and such used because the utilities were included in the rent, but obviously that deal isn’t actually as good is they want you to think :)