Which gadgets cost the most on standby, and is it worth switching them off at the wall?
Is it worth switching things off at the wall? Sometimes, but not everything, and the answer comes down to one sum: every watt left running all year costs about £2.24 at today's UK electricity price. A gadget that sips 1W costs pennies. One that draws 20W costs about £45 a year.
You'll see big round numbers online for what standby costs the average home, and they vary a lot by source and by year. I haven't quoted one. Instead, here's the sum so you can work out your own, and a way to find out which gadgets in your house are worth the trouble.
The sum, at today's price
On 24 October 2026, the Flexible Octopus electricity unit rate in Yorkshire was about 25.6p per kWh (including VAT, from the Octopus Energy API). Your rate will be in the same area, and your bill gives the exact figure.
A year has 8,760 hours. So a device drawing 1W, all day every day, uses 8.76kWh a year. At 25.6p that's about £2.24.
| Constant draw | Energy a year | Cost a year at 25.6p |
|---|---|---|
| 1W | 8.76kWh | about £2.24 |
| 5W | 43.8kWh | about £11.21 |
| 10W | 87.6kWh | about £22.43 |
| 20W | 175.2kWh | about £44.85 |
These are the sums, not measurements of any particular gadget. What a given TV, console or soundbar actually draws on standby depends on the model and its settings, so you need to check yours. More on how below.
What does that look like in real terms?
The typical air fryer session on the Cheap Watts site (30 minutes, 0.5kWh) costs about 13p at 25.6p per kWh. A device quietly drawing 10W all year costs about £22, which is roughly 175 air fryer sessions.
Put another way, a full tumble dryer load (4kWh in our typical figures) costs about £1.02. That same 10W gadget costs the equivalent of around 22 tumble dryer loads over a year, and you never get any dry washing out of it.
So standby is a real cost, but it's a slow one. It's worth a Saturday afternoon of checking. It isn't worth rearranging your life.
Which gadgets are worth checking?
I'm not going to put a wattage next to each product, because I can't verify one number that fits every make and model. What I can tell you is where to look. The ones worth a measurement are anything that:
- Has a light, clock or display that's on all the time. Microwaves, ovens, coffee machines and clock radios.
- Is meant to wake up quickly. Games consoles left in rest mode, TV boxes, soundbars and streaming sticks, because they're keeping parts of themselves running so they're ready when you press a button.
- Charges something and stays plugged in. Chargers left in the wall with nothing attached, power banks, and electric toothbrush bases.
- Sits in a cluster. The TV area and the desk area are the usual two. One extension lead with a switch can cover six gadgets at once.
This post is only about gadgets that are sitting idle. Anything that has to keep running, such as a fridge, freezer or broadband router, and anything you rely on for your safety or health, is outside it. Leave those alone.
How to find out what yours actually draw
You have two options, and both are cheap.
- A plug-in energy monitor. It sits between the wall and the gadget and shows the live watts. Check a few of your gadgets in standby and write the numbers down. Anything showing a steady few watts or more is a candidate. Try the TV area first.
- Your smart meter. Switch off everything you can before bed, or while you're out, and look at the live reading on your in-home display or app. What's left is your "always on" load, including the fridge and router. If it's higher than you expected, go hunting with the plug-in monitor.
Once you have a number in watts, multiply it by £2.24 to get the yearly cost at today's price. A 15W gadget is about £34 a year.
Is it worth the faff?
Here's how I'd decide.
- Under 2W: leave it. You're saving a few pounds at most and annoying yourself every day.
- 5W to 10W: switch it off if it's easy, for example with a switched extension lead you already walk past.
- Over 10W, when you're not using it: switch it off at the wall. That's £22 or more a year, for a flick of a switch.
The honest bit: the biggest standby saving in most homes comes from three or four things, not forty. Find those, switch them off, and move on.
What about the bigger costs?
Standby is the small end of your bill. The big costs are heating, hot water and the heavy appliances, and when you run those matters more than whether the soundbar is off. I covered that in what's the cheapest time to use electricity in the UK.
If you want to see what your laundry, dishwasher or oven costs at different times of day, Cheap Watts works it out. Pick the appliance, and it shows the cheapest window on your tariff.
The short version
- At 25.6p per kWh (Flexible Octopus, Yorkshire, 24 October 2026), every watt left on all year costs about £2.24.
- A 10W gadget costs about £22 a year, and a 20W one about £45.
- Measure rather than guess: a plug-in energy monitor, or your smart meter overnight.
- This is about idle gadgets only. Leave the fridge, freezer, router and anything you rely on for safety or health alone.
- Switch off the handful of gadgets that draw 5W or more when you're not using them, and ignore the rest.
This weekend, find the plug with the most things in it behind your TV, put a monitor on it, and see what the number says.