How to Prevent Your Game Console From Increasing Your Electricity Bill
Even in standby mode, your game console can consume 25 times the minimum amount of power it needs, and this can subtly inflate your energy bills. Standby power consumption is also less environmentally friendly, which is another reason to check and fix your console’s power consumption. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental group, said Xbox owners in particular could collectively pay an additional $ 500 million in electricity bills due to default power settings.
Honestly, Xbox Series X | The S and PS5 are more energy efficient when streaming movies or performing less intensive tasks than older consoles. However, it is best to check the power settings on these consoles to avoid draining your wallet and wasting energy.
See how much power your consoles are using and what you can do to lower your power bills.
How To Reduce Power Consumption Of Xbox Series X | S
Xbox Series X | The S comes with Instant On Power enabled in most regions. This allows the console to stream games to the smartphone, and update and install games when the console is in standby mode. However Xbox Series X | The S consumes 10-13 watts of power in Instant On mode, up from 0.4-0.5 watts when the power saving mode is on.
If you haven’t purchased your console yet and energy savings are a big factor, the Series S has the edge. Even when you’re playing games, the Series S (74W) draws half the power of the Series X (153W), according to Microsoft . Of course, no one buys a console solely to save energy, and there are other factors to consider.
Regardless of which version of the latest Microsoft game consoles you have installed, simply adjusting your power settings can save you money. Go to Settings on your Xbox and go to General> Power & Startup .
Under Power Mode, select Power Saving to prevent your console from drawing more power than necessary.
This settings page also lets you choose how long you want to wait before the Xbox shuts down. Minimum 1 hour of inactivity when playing games and two hours of inactivity when streaming music or movies.
Of course, you can go to Power & Startup in Settings and select Full Shutdown to shut down your Xbox completely. Once you’ve done that, you can turn it off to be absolutely sure it isn’t wasting electricity.
How to reduce power consumption on PS4 and PS5
On the PlayStation 5, you can reduce the console’s power consumption by opening Settings and choosing System> Power Saving . Likewise, on PlayStation 4, these options can be found by going to Settings> Power Saving Settings .
Both PS4 and PS5 have a Set Time Until PS5 (or PS4) Goes to Rest Mode menu. By default, the console will go into rest mode after one hour of inactivity during gameplay and four hours of inactivity when streaming movies. You can shorten the time to reduce energy consumption.
Both Sony consoles also have a ‘ Functions Available in Rest Mode’ option. Here you can choose if you want the console to charge your controllers via USB ports when you hold your PS5 in rest mode. You can also decide if you want the console to be able to connect to the Internet when it is at rest. If you turn off internet access, it will not be able to download games or updates when not in use.
PS5 allows you to set the time before the PlayStation controllers turn off . You can quickly select the amount of time to wait before turning off the DualSense controller. Shortening the time will extend the battery life of your controller.
Finally, you can turn off your PS5 by pressing the PS button on your controller once and choosing Power> Turn Off PS5 . The corresponding option on PS4 can be accessed by pressing and holding the PS button on the controller and then selecting Power Off PS4 . This will result in a complete shutdown, as opposed to Quiescent Mode, which puts the console into a low power state that still draws a small amount of power.