The biggest lie on your electricity bill is the assumption that off means off. A modern home runs a shadow fleet of always-on devices — routers, set-top boxes, smart speakers, chargers, sleeping consoles — drawing 1–15 W each, 24 hours a day. Individually trivial; as a fleet, $100–300 a year.
The census
| Device | Idle draw | 24/7 annual cost at $0.15 |
|---|---|---|
| Cable set-top box (DVR) | 15–30 W | $20–40 — the worst offender |
| Gaming console (rest mode) | 5–15 W | $7–20 |
| Wi-Fi router + mesh nodes | 6–15 W | $8–20 (legitimately always-on) |
| Smart speaker | 2–4 W | $3–5 |
| TV (off but plugged) | 1–5 W | $1–7 |
| Laptop chargers left plugged | 1–3 W each | $1–4 each |
Finding your vampires
- A $15 kill-a-watt meter measures any plug directly — an afternoon of auditing finds the fleet.
- The touch test: warm chargers and adapters are drawing power.
- Whole-home check: read the meter with everything "off" — the baseline draw is the vampire total.
The fix, honestly tiered
- Smart plugs ($10–15): schedule or kill draw on devices that tolerate it (TVs, consoles, chargers). Payback: months.
- Power strips with switches: the manual version — one switch kills the entertainment center's fleet.
- Leave the legit ones: routers and security systems earn their draw; killing the internet to save $15 is a bad trade.
Run your suspects through the cost calculator at 24 h/day, and the fleet stops being invisible. The vampires rarely get staked individually — they get staked by the power strip.