Summary

• Keeping devices plugged in overnight can completely deplete portable power banks.
• Certain power banks and charging hubs display energy consumption.
• A smart outlet can help monitor and minimize energy waste from continuously plugged-in devices.

We're told that unplugging gadgets helps save energy, but it's easy to overlook this advice. Since energy use is unseen and forgotten, confirming this waste turns out to be quite straightforward.

Keeping Devices Connected to a Power Bank Depletes It

Recently, I placed power banks in various rooms around my home. Most of our furniture is distant from outlets, making this arrangement convenient. As a result, I now pay close attention to when it’s time to disconnect my phone.

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Posts 7 I prefer smaller power banks, typically 10,000mAh. This is sufficient to fully charge my Galaxy Z Fold 6 twice. However, if I leave my phone plugged into the battery overnight, it will be drained by morning.

Your phone will keep charging to maintain a full charge. Even with battery protection limiting the charge to below 100%, it will still top up throughout the night. Consequently, the external battery is likely to be depleted. Instead of getting two charges from the battery, I've only managed one, yet the battery has used up its entire energy capacity.

The thing is, phones consume more wattage per hour during charging than they do when unplugged. My phone charges at over 20W, but it doesn’t discharge by that amount when disconnected. Had I unplugged my phone on time, it wouldn’t have drained its own internal battery, which is significantly smaller at 4,400mAh. In reality, it probably would have decreased by only a few percentage points overnight. This means it isn’t even using all the energy it pulls from the battery. That power is essentially wasted.

Some Power Banks and Charging Hubs Display Energy Consumption

Waking up to a dead power bank doesn’t reveal precisely how much energy you’re using—unless your power bank actually shows energy usage.

Larger banks with high energy outputs, such as over 60 or 100 watts, often include displays showing the current energy flow.

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PostsIf you invest in specific USB-C charging hubs, they’ll provide the same information. When the screen indicates an output of 20W, that means the phone is drawing 20W per hour while charging.

Energy usage isn’t always steady. Phones may have charging patterns where they pull a lot of power when low but draw very little when nearing full. Still, even if a phone shifts from pulling 20W to only 3W, that’s akin to leaving a light bulb on that you aren’t using.

You Can Also Monitor Energy Usage on Portable Power Stations

I reside in a rural area where we lose water access whenever the power goes out because of our electric well pump. To address this, we’ve equipped our home with numerous portable power stations, including large ones like the Anker Solix F3800 Plus.

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Posts 1 Each of these power stations shows the energy being discharged at any moment.

Frankly, the large AC inverter within the F3800 consumes more power than a phone does, meaning that particular battery will strain its own battery more than a phone might. However, if you connect something larger, like a laptop, to a smaller battery like the Anker Solix C300, leaving that laptop charged will quickly drain the C300, even if the laptop is fully charged.

Anker claims the C300 can charge a laptop four times via USB-C. I observed my wife’s laptop draining the battery in a few hours from being left plugged in (to an AC outlet, not a USB-C port) while they worked. Similar to a phone, the laptop likely wouldn’t have drained its own battery in that time, but it happily absorbed the excess energy from an external source.

You Can Purchase a Smart Outlet

I reviewed a Tapo P210M smart outlet, and one reason to replace a standard wall outlet is to monitor energy usage. If you leave a phone charger plugged into a smart outlet over a day, week, month, or year, it will inform you exactly how much energy you’ve wasted.

The number won’t appear on the outlet itself. To view this data from my smart outlet, I must open the Tapo app. There, I can obtain the information without calculating it myself.

To cut energy usage, I can set the outlet on a schedule so it automatically stops supplying power a few hours after I fall asleep. This way, I can wake up to a charged phone without breaking the habit of overnight charging.

The same feature is available from some smart plugs or smart surge protectors, which don’t require any electrical work in your home.

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I can’t tell you precisely how much power you’re wasting by keeping your devices plugged in. That depends on how many devices you have charging indefinitely throughout your home.

However, you can calculate this once you determine how much power each charger draws at any given time and then multiply that by the number of hours. Once you reach 1000 watts, you’ve consumed a kilowatt. Power companies here in the US usually charge by the kilowatt, such as 12 cents per kilowatt. Likely, it isn’t costing you more than a dollar or two per month, but wasted energy is still lost energy.

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