Equipment standby
power monitoring
Standby and operating power measured over time, with resolution matched to the low loads that standby involves. See how much energy your equipment uses when it is doing nothing.
THE PROBLEM
Doing nothing is surprisingly expensive
Machines, office equipment, vending machines, displays and building systems all draw power when they are not working. One machine on standby looks trivial. Hundreds of them, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, add up to a load that shows clearly in the night-time baseline of the site.
Industrial machines are a particular case. Hydraulic packs, heaters, coolant pumps and controls often stay on between shifts and over weekends, drawing a large share of their working power while producing nothing.
Product designers face the same question from the other side: how much does our appliance use in standby, and does it meet the limit our market sets?
HOW WE SET IT UP
Measure each state, then act on it
Resolution matched to the load
Standby loads can be a few watts on a circuit rated for kilowatts. We choose the meter range and CT size so the low end is measured with useful resolution, and use separate measurement for small appliances where needed.
States from the power profile
Thresholds on the power reading split time into off, standby and operating. RIOD Live reports hours and kWh in each state, per machine and per shift.
Alerts for equipment left on
Rules flag equipment that stays in standby outside working hours and alert the person responsible. Sense-i nodes with relay outputs can act locally where switching off is safe.
Standby testing for product teams
For OEMs, connected measurement records standby and operating power over long test runs, with exports for the design team and the certification work.
AT A GLANCE
Standby power monitoring at a glance
- Measured
- Power consumption over time, split into off, standby and operating states
- Hardware
- Smart energy sub-meters and Sense-i current and power nodes, sized to the load
- Connectivity
- Wi-Fi, 4G or BLE; LoRa or Zigbee on request
- Power
- 12 V adapter or 2,000 to 5,000 mAh battery options, chosen per device and site
- Local logic
- Thresholds, alarms and relay outputs on Sense-i nodes
- Reports
- Audit trails on every report, PDF and Excel export, AI access to the data through MCP
- Engineering note
- Meter range and resolution are matched to the low loads being measured
FAQ
Questions buyers ask us
How do you measure standby power consumption?
Measure the equipment's power continuously over days or weeks with an instrument whose resolution suits low loads. Thresholds then separate standby from operating periods, giving standby watts, hours and kWh.
Why does meter resolution matter for standby power?
A meter sized for a machine's full load may read a few watts of standby poorly. Matching the CT and meter range to the low end, or measuring standby on a separate channel, gives a reliable standby figure.
How much power do industrial machines draw on standby between shifts?
It depends heavily on the machine. Those with hydraulics, heaters or coolant systems left running can draw a large fraction of their working power on standby. Measuring each machine shows where switch-off routines will pay off.
Can monitoring switch equipment off automatically?
Sense-i nodes have relay outputs and local thresholds, so they can switch circuits where it is safe to do so. For production machines, alerts to the responsible person are usually the better first step.
Want to see what your equipment uses on standby?
Tell us the equipment and how it is supplied. We will propose the measurement and the reports that turn standby into savings.