Is there any benefit to keeping your smart TV in standby mode?

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You might have noticed that pressing the power button on your TV's remote doesn't fully turn it off. Modern TVs are designed to enter a deep sleep or standby mode rather than shutting down completely. They still sip a tiny bit of power in this state, but the upside is much faster start-up times. Standby mode may seem wasteful, but you'd be surprised to know it can actually be helpful and even a necessary part of display maintenance and long-term reliability.

Thankfully, smart TVs barely consume any electricity in standby mode and are just one of many other appliances you may also leave plugged in. So, should you specifically unplug your TV when you're done watching or should you continue to place it in standby? There are good reasons for both approaches, but your TV's standby mode does have a few big advantages.

The biggest downside to shutting down or switching off your TV is that you'll have to wait a couple of minutes or even longer the next time you turn it back on. Newer TVs now ship with full-fledged operating systems like LG's WebOS, Google TV, Amazon's Fire TV OS and Roku OS. Booting them can take about as long as powering on your smartphone. In fact, many TVs take longer to boot because they often ship with lower-end processors and storage chips than your typical flagship phone.

Boot times aside, smart TVs can also take advantage of standby mode to update their software in the background. While that may not sound like a big deal, imagine needing to wait a few minutes for your TV's operating system to update before you can watch content. Likewise, streaming apps like Netflix and YouTube receive frequent updates that can be completed in standby mode.

Finally, OLED TVs rely on standby mode for a critical function: panel maintenance. When you press the power button on an OLED TV remote, it enters standby and a feature known as automatic compensation cycle, or pixel-refresh often kicks in to reduce the risk of image retention or burn-in. 

The latter is one of the biggest downsides to OLED displays, so manufacturers design these panel care features to run in standby mode. Shutting down or unplugging your TV immediately after a viewing session prevents this process from running. And if you repeatedly interrupt it, you could eventually notice uneven display wear or burn-in.

The good news is that most TVs consume relatively little power in standby mode. In the United States, ENERGY STAR-certified TVs must use no more than one watt while in standby, even if they're connected to a network. Several jurisdictions around the world have moved to make this one watt standby threshold a requirement under the One Watt Initiative.

One watt of power drawn throughout a year translates to about 9 KWh of energy, which in turn increases your power bill by about $1.50. That said, electricity is more expensive in some parts of the world. The average household in California pays twice as much per unit of energy as the national average, for instance.

If you're going away for an extended period, though, unplugging the TV is probably the easiest way to avoid wasting even a small amount of standby power.

There are also legitimate reasons why you might want to reboot your TV from time to time. A reboot allows your TV to clear background processes stored in memory, which can make a big difference to the overall responsiveness. If you've noticed persistent lag or sluggishness, a reboot may indeed be the solution. 

Check the manual for reboot instructions since abruptly pulling the cord can interrupt maintenance tasks. On some TVs, for example, holding down the power button on the remote brings up a menu with options to shut down and restart.