EC Ecodesign Working Plan for 2015 to 2017 comes into effect

[HEXUS]

Energy efficiency measures may impact on new smart connected device functionality.

Read more.

[Jowsey]

RAH RAH RAH! What do you mean accept MORE instructions from Brussels!!? Beeping Euro scum! *Starts out of Europe chant*

But actually. Is this anything other than good? Consumers need to be careful when choosing products which claim to be green but may cripple experiences but it's of the same ilk as euro emission laws.

Sure, these laws of ended up putting a lot of small diesel engines in cars so cars meet the emission targets and this has ended up with lots of people getting turgid driving experiences, but people don't complain too much when the 1.3 diesel heart returns 60MPG! Or my girlfriends little 1.4 Polo being clock at 72 MPG ( for the ~200 mile trip) when she drove a long stint down the A1!

These emission regs have also born the small petrol turbo in true fashion. Ford's ecoBoost 1 litre petrol sounds sooooo dreary. However, in the Ford Fiesta it's quite a nice little runner, developing around 100 HP. And Audi are about the enter the 1.0 Turbo scene which can only make it more interesting.

Also, Britain has legally bound itself to reducing emissions via the Kyoto Protocol (I believe) so the UK goverment are just rolling these demands down the line to avoid the flak that they would get!

TL;DR: This is good. Don't whinge about the EC for no good reason.

[crossy]

RAH RAH RAH! What do you mean accept MORE instructions from Brussels!!? Beeping Euro scum! *Starts out of Europe chant*

But actually. Is this anything other than good? Consumers need to be careful when choosing products which claim to be green but may cripple experiences but it's of the same ilk as euro emission laws.
[snipped]
Also, Britain has legally bound itself to reducing emissions via the Kyoto Protocol (I believe) so the UK goverment are just rolling these demands down the line to avoid the flak that they would get!
TL;DR: This is good. Don't whinge about the EC for no good reason.

Bit on Kyoto blame is a bit cynical, isn't it? Good point though about the cars, I switched last year from petrol Ford Focus to diesel Chevrolet Cruze. The "Chevvy" gets around 45mpg, and is very quiet on the motorway, and is quicker for overtaking (thanks to a 50bhp increase over the Ford) - as I found out to my cost (three points and a hundred quid) last month (fargling, nergling speed cameras Actually surprised by the number of folks who've "gone diesel" and are liking it very much - just hope that the fluff in the Daily Maul etc about diesel exhaust being horribly carcinogenic etc isn't true otherwise we've just made things worse.

The EC says that these devices "should be able to switch automatically into a low power standby mode if no main task is performed". That sounds more like an option than an obligation to me…

Quite correct - remembering back to my (dimly remembered?) ISO9001 training - if you say "should" then it's a recommendation, on the other hand if it'd said "shall be able to switch..." then that would be an order.

Let's hope that all these directives give consumers more power saving options rather than enforcing some arbitrary 'green' limits on devices.

Hmm, don't agree. Problem is that manufacturers have been pretty slow to put these kind of options out there - "green" isn't sexy. Of course, there's nothing to stop someone convincing the great masses that these kind of options are "must haves" in which case the manufacturers will have to follow the herd. A properly implemented power saving option needn't be a big deal anyway. I got some of those new Devolo 500Mb/s Powerline Ethernet plugs a couple of months ago and those have a "deep sleep" mode where the power draw drops to tiny fractions of an Amp, and it only takes 2-3 seconds to bring them back to full operation. Actually wish my coffee pod machine had a similar mode.

[Jowsey]

Bit on Kyoto blame is a bit cynical, isn't it?

Is there any other way to deal with politicians ?

[pastymuncher]

The thing that concerns me is that if a modem turns itself off when not in use won't the connection think that the modem is dropping the line and end up crippling my line profile?

[crossy]

The thing that concerns me is that if a modem turns itself off when not in use won't the connection think that the modem is dropping the line and end up crippling my line profile?

I'm hoping that when you say "modem" you mean an ADSL one, not one of those squeaky white boxes marked "US Robotics" like I've got in the loft! If you do mean 56k modem then I think you really need to get an upgrade!

[aniilv]

On what occasion would modem be allowed to go into some kind of standby? What does standby mean? I wont be able to connect to my wifi device in middle of night because it will go into standby? I think not... so again, what is this even going to do?

[pastymuncher]

Obviously. TP-Link TD-W8960N ADSL Modem/Router.