Exactly How Much Does It Cost in Electricity To Keep Our Mobile Addiction Going

Found a really cool study by ZD Net that has occasionally no doubt made all of us ponder. I've had a thought that the total electricity consumed by a mobile phone from its recharging is worth less than one dollar (or one Euro actually) per year but that was an ancient number from very hazy sources. Now we have a fresh study by ZD Net who did it on a phablet-screen iPhone 6 Plus. They measured that it consumes 19.2 wh (watt hours) per night of recharging. In a year it amounted to 7 kwh (kilowatt hours). And by current US electricity costs that amounts to 84 US cents ie $0.84 to keep the iPhone on for a year in electrical costs.

Note - the industry has totally different (vastly higher) power requirements at the base stations at the cell towers, so its not a total cost. This is the electrical cost at our end. The other electrical costs are of course part of the costs of operating a mobile network and part of what you pay for in your phone bill.  But yeah. Now we know. 84 cents per year, or every four days of recharging, you've spent another penny on your mobile addiction in terms of its electricity costs. Thanks ZD Net for doing the story.

So how is that then cumulatively for humankind. Again, its not much. The total bill to keep all our phones recharged in terms of electricity would be about 39,000 Gigawatt hours (gwh) per year (about five large electrical power plants running 24h per day - but this covers all 5.6 Billion handsets both smart and dumb). In dollar terms, roughly 3 Billion US dollars is our electrical bill to keep all phones recharged in a year. 

Now.. for ALMOST all other numbers you ever wanted to know about mobile.. they're in the TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 edition.

Comments

[Wayne Borean]

As an aside, six years ago I wrote an article about DRM system power usage. I had no solid numbers to work with, and admitted it. What I did try to do was explain to people who had no technical skills how DRM could impact them and their devices.

https://therealmadhatter.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/digital-right-management-andor-technical-protection-measures-cause-climate-change/

[Wayne Borean]

@AppleIsSuchAHugeFailure,

Guess they don't want your patronage. Vote with your feet.

[abdul muis]

http://mashable.com/2016/04/06/2g-phones-austalia/
Some people are still using 2G phones, and not for the reasons you'd expect

[Tester]

@AppleIsSuchAHugeFailure!:

And yet the hardware producers insist on non-replaceable batteries. Lucky me with a phone where I can carry around a second one if the main one passes out (which normally happens before the day ends!)

[Wayne Borean]

Ever wonder how to make money in app programming? Get a contract with the TSA!

http://loweringthebar.net/2016/04/the-tsas-million-dollar-app-and-my-zero-dollar-equivalent.html

[Tester]

Ouch!

[Wayne Borean]

@Tomi,

You forgot to ask the most important thing - what does our addiction do to us? Here's your answer.

http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county/2016/04/10

[XaviItz]

12¢ per KWHr in the US.

Fine. But that baby is €0.29 (USD 33¢) in Deutschland.

so the Germans pay $2.31 per iPhone, not the $0.84 the U.S. consumer pays.

4X, ouch!

[abdul muis]

@XaviItz

"so the Germans pay $2.31 per iPhone, not the $0.84 the U.S. consumer pays."

Don't be so phonecist (racist -> phone-cist [or is it iSheep]), it's $2.31 per smartphone, not per iPhone.

[abdul muis]

@XaviItz

(opps) ZDNet talk about specific phones... the iPhone 6 Plus...

[abdul muis]

From this:
http://flurrymobile.tumblr.com/post/136677391508/stateofmobile2015

[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/138382953@N08/24153214416/in/dateposted-public/ -image ]
The growth rates of these three categories dramatically over-indexed on phablets compared to the growth rates on all devices combined. Growth in News & Magazines apps on phablets was 5.3x that of all devices, meaning phablet users are engaging in these apps at a much higher rate than the average smart device user. A similar pattern emerged for Sports and Music, Media & Entertainment apps, at 5.16x and 4.19x respectively. It appears that the extra inch of real estate has made the phablet the ultimate media consumption device.

[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/138382953@N08/23811495209/in/dateposted-public/ - image2 ]
The picture got much clearer when we looked at year-over-year growth in time spent and cut that by form factor. Time spent on phablets grew 334% year-over-year (2.9 times more than the average), compared to 117% for all form factors. With time spent on mobile surpassing that on television, and phablets posting astonishing growth in media consumption, it appears that the cable industry will find in the phablet and its apps its long-awaited digital nemesis.

[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/138382953@N08/24096699531/in/dateposted-public/ - image3 ]
Once labeled a fad (even by us), Phablets have become the unstoppable media consumption device. 27% of all new devices activated for Christmas this year were phablets and 50% of all Android devices activated in the same timeframe were phablets.

We say “unstoppable” because if the current trends hold, the phablet will become the dominant form factor by October of next year. The above chart shows our forecast for worldwide device distribution, by form factor through the middle of 2017. Also interesting to note is that small phones will be extinct by the second quarter of 2016. It’s clear consumers want their content, and they want it on a bigger screen.

[abdul muis]

@Tomi

I put it here (in less crowded area)

http://applenws.com/according-to-apple-the-iphone-ipad-and-apple-watch-will-last-three-years-with-their-original-buyers/2016/phone-arena

According to Apple, the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch will last three years with their original buyers.

[Lawrence D’Oliveiro]

39,000GWh per year is about 4.4GW.