My ecobutton is glowing at me.

Last week as previously noted, I attended the Suffern Chamber of Commerce’s breakfast meeting honoring new volunteer firefighters that also included a short presentation by HP and their partner ASI.  When the breakfast ended, ASI handed out goodie bags.  I like goodie bags.  When my children attend a party they usually come home with a goodie bag which I search through looking for Tootsie Rolls.  Of course, now that I’m officially in the Suffern Music and Arts Festival’s Seismic Slimdown, Tootsie Rolls are officially off the list.

As I looked through the ASI goody bag I found an HP/ASI 2GB thumb drive--very cool because I can always use a new thumb drive, an ASI Rubik’s cube keychain, again very cool because when you have nothing to do a Rubik’s cube can come in handy especially when you solve it in front of strangers and finally, an ecobutton.

I briefly looked at the ecobutton through the wrapper and it was set aside until this morning.   

The ecobutton is approximately two inches in diameter with a “green” logo of a tree with ASI & HP and various other “green” icons making up the leaves.  It has a USB cord that hooks up to your PC.

For some reason, I decided to play with the ecobutton today. The instructions described how to download and install the required software but didn’t tell me what it would actually do.  I went to the website, downloaded the software and plugged my ecobutton into a usb port.  It sat there and glowed green at me.

I’m really not one for reading instructions unless absolutely necessary so I avoided actually reading about what would happen if I pressed the glowing green button, I just sat and watched it glow on and off, on and off.  After a few moments I found the courage to press the green glowing button.

My PC automatically went into ‘ecomode’ meaning my computer and monitor were drawing the same amount of power as they would if they have been shut down!  Press a key on the keyboard and you’re back in business.  I realize that most PC’s go into sleep mode or a screensaver comes on after a few minutes of not being used.  The ecobutton goes even further by reducing power consumption even more. 

Now I was intrigued so I had to visit the ecobutton website for more information.

According to the homepage, there are approximately 165 million computers in the United States.  Worldwide there are almost a billion costing about $10 billion dollars a year in electricity to keep them all running.  355 million tonnes of CO2 is produced each year to keep them all running which is enough gas to fill approximately 70 million hot air balloons.

The website continues on to say that approximately $1.3 billion are wasted and 5 million tonnes of CO2 is produced each year in the U.S. alone through people leaving their computers on while talking on the phone, taking breaks etc.

Digging a little deeper, I found this description of the ecobutton:

The ecobutton™ acts as a strong visual reminder and prompt for you to save electricity each time your computer is going to be left idle.

The ecobutton™ is illuminated and sits on your table/desk top next to your keyboard. It connects to your computer via a USB cable.

Each time you take a short or long break, a phone call, go for a meeting etc. you simply press the ecobutton™ and your computer is put into energy saving 'ecomode' which ensures that both your computer and monitor draw only the same nominal power as when they are shut down!

Under normal circumstances people generally do not like turning off their computers due to the time it often takes to restart. However, with ecobutton™ by simply pressing any key on your keyboard (some computers require a momentary press of the power button) your computer instantly returns to where you left off.

There's also an additional bonus, each time your computer is put into 'ecomode' the clever ecobutton™ software records how many carbon units and how much power and money you have saved by using the ecobutton™. Over time this can add up to quite a lot (especially if you have many computers running in an office) and you can use this data to help reduce your carbon footprint as well as your energy bills.

It turns out that HP and ASI are both really walking the walk when it comes to being green and the ecobutton turns out to be one of the best toys of the bunch in the goodie bag.

By the way, for those of you who are still trying to figure out the Rubik’s cube you bought back in 1980 when they were first introduced by Ideal Toys, here’s a hint; forget trying to get the sides done, work on the layers instead and you’ll find it somewhat easier to solve.  I say somewhat because with more than 43 quintillion permutations, you still have a long way to go.