Content autoplay functions drive energy consumption
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Editor
| 01 September 2023
A study from video solutions provider Accedo has found a high variation of energy consumption between various streaming devices, with TVs alone being the most efficient and with autoplay content dramatically increasing energy consumption.
accedo logo 1Sep2023
The study investigated the energy usage of various streaming devices and a number of popular streaming applications, testing various scenarios at application level, implementing changes around bitrate, resolution and dark mode versus light mode, to evaluate subsequent energy variations. Accedo also explored user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) techniques that can contribute to improved energy efficiency includes the recommendation of better UX guidelines to avoid unnecessary playback.

Set-top-boxes were found to use only a small amount of energy (Amazon Fire ~1.5W, Sky Puck ~3W, Youview ~10W), while gaming consoles use around 70 watts of energy. As both these types of devices need to be paired with a screen for playback, the overall energy consumption was higher than using a smart TV alone. Smart TVs were found to use around 51W with energy saving enabled and screen backlight set to 20%. With default backlight settings at 80%, a LG WebOS TV would use around 120W and Tizen 2016 would use around 130W during playback. Switching energy saving off increased these further to around 170W for LG TV and around 200W for Tizen.

Looking at streaming applications, Accedo found that in general, the variation among apps across different devices was minimal. On smart TVs with lower screen brightness settings, the average power consumption across all tested apps was around 52W. Amazon Prime's home view had lower idle power consumption than the other apps, with approximately 50% less power used compared with Netflix at default brightness settings. Accedo believed this was likely due to the lack of auto-playing content and the use of darker colours on the home screen.

In a call to action, Accedo suggested manufacturers prompted consumers to switch devices and/or adjust backlight settings, as well as considering using darker aesthetics, implement energy saving features such as “skip Intro” or “are you still watching” and a reduction in animated content.

Accedo also indicated that further research could focus on UX changes or improvements that will help with the sustainability of the application or device or working with device manufacturers to create more energy-efficient hardware.
“Our research has identified several impactful changes that, when implemented during development, could reduce the energy consumption of video streaming devices without sacrificing performance or user experience,” noted Accedo sustainability director François Polarczyk. “However, there is still more work to be done and we are actively looking at further investigations in this area, particularly from a user acceptance perspective.”