Questions about suspect new "Child Media-Monitor" product

[Brad1]

I'm not an expert in televisions or CRTs, etc, so I'm not quite sure if I'm bringing up a valid point.
I read in yesterday's paper about a new product that proposes to automatically limit childrens' time on TV, Internet, etc.
Basically, it appears to be a lockbox that the computer,TV, etc. power plug is locked inside of, and then the parent can activate a time-controlled code that the child can enter to access that amount of time before the device removes power from the controlled device. Sorta like those "Away From Home" lighting timers, except the power plug is locked up. It basically "pulls the plug". Check this out:

http://www.hopscotchtechnology.com/products.html

Besides the obvious idiocy of regularly killing power on a computer in the middle of a Windows session, I'm wondering if this sort of scheme would stress power supplies and cause premature failure? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the power supply caps being kept constantly charged by being plugged in, and wouldn't the constant discharge and surge wear those, and possibly components down-circuit from them? Isn't the actual power button (relay, whatever) connected after the charged caps to supply full-charge and help prevent as large a surge to the rest of the circuitry?

Is my thinking wrong? Is this a product with good intentions, but poor implementation? If it is a bad implementation, will this product only fill our landfills with more environmentally bad products, and create more sales for Asian companies to increase our trade imbalance even more? And, since petro-chemicals are used extensively in the manufacture and shipping of these products, will this increase foreign use of oil, because we will be buying more to replace prematurely blown-up stuff?

Are my concerns valid, or is this a perfectly acceptable product? If this is a bad product, should it be exposed as such? If I'm wrong, I welcome the explanation of why.

Just wondering.

Brad1

[Steve A.]

Brad:

I know some people who have their TV connected to a switched outlet because TV's draw current even when switched off. (Anything with a remote control that can turn it on MUST be drawing current when it is supposedly off.) However if you turn off the power to your VCR as well, it can lose the time or even the channel setup information; I'm not sure if that applies to the new generation of TV's. So using BOB on your TV might not be that disastrous.

But having BOB kill the power to your computer? Sheer idiocy! (I could always tell when users were just switching off their computers rather than going through the proper shutdown procedure because their temporary folder would fill up with undeleted files... to the point where they were running out of hard drive space!)

There could be computer version of BOB that plugs into a USB port. They already make USB security devices to prevent you from logging on or powering up, so the technology is already there. BOB would simply be the interface that the users deal with, although it would require power from somewhere- possibly batteries, since plugging it into the wall would add more one cable. (I don't think that USB ports are powered when a computer is shutdown.)

Steve Ahola

-- from the web site:

"When my daughter has slumber parties, I can go to bed without worrying that the girls are staying up until all hours of the night watching TV." --Lovie from TX

Thank you for sharing that with us, Lovie. It's obviously okay with you if they stay up all night smoking crack, but heaven forbid that they might be watching a Three Stooges marathon... ever heard of the expression "parental supervision"? I guess not.

[Enzo]

It won't hurt power supplies to turn them off. Other than this thing, how many products do we have that don't get unpligged at the end of the gig? WHat it does to WIndows software is a whole other story.

[Brad1]

Thanks guys, I was curious. I assumed that they need to be plugged in to keep the caps charged up to turn on quickly, without such a surge.
About unplugging equipment at gigs, that makes a bit of sense, but I wasn't sure if things like mixers and PA equipment took quite the surge to start up as would something with a CRT. A couple of my high-power amps have a delay after power up, and I figured that was what that was for....to give it a bit of time to stabilize before supplying power to the rest of the circuit (and to prevent blowing out speakers with a loud POP). And of course, tube amps either have a standby switch, or the circuit brings it up a bit slower anyway, so they won't take quite the abuse.

I just thought TV's and monitors might be designed more to be constantly plugged in, but I might be thinking of older "instant-on" technology, and it may well not matter much anymore.

I'd think some form of BOB would be better built into the television to operate from the remote, than its present form. But, what manufacturer would want to build in something to cause their product to be used less? It's in their self-interest for us to wear them out, and buy new ones, eh?

I still wouldn't recommend BOB, and I definitely wouldn't put one of those on a computer. I agree with Steve. BOB shouldn't be a parent....a parent should be a parent.

Brad1

[Steve A.]

I still wouldn't recommend BOB, and I definitely wouldn't put one of those on a computer. I agree with Steve. BOB shouldn't be a parent....a parent should be a parent.

Brad:

I think it might be useful if you had young kids (like under 12) who would watch too much TV after school. BOB would allow the parents to ration out so many hours of TV without having to sit around to enforce the rules. But once your kids are teenagers it takes more than a black box to keep them in line... Fire!

[Enzo]

Caps charge in less than a second, so in consumer gear it is not a concern. What I meant by unplugging was that at most gigs, the power is removed from everything at the end of the night - every day.

A CRT is nothing more than a vacuum tube. It has heaters, cathodes, grids. Only difference is that it is large and has a screen. Oh and that HV third anode.

Older TVs were always on so mom and dad din't have to wait 15 whole seconds for a picture to appear. It had nothing to do with reliability or saving the electronics. Instant on TVs were always warmed up - and wasting electricity. Today they are still always on, but only enough to receive the remote signal. The tube is not kept hot. They draw no more power now than an alarm clock when they are idle.

SInce TVs usually will work for well over a decade, I don't think turning off the power to them would really impact the wearing out and replacing them thing. I doubt replacing a TV in 12 years rather than 11 will impact the bottom line at RCA.

ANd yes, those power amp delays are to keep pops and turn on noises out of the speakers, not to protect power supply caps.

The power supplies in most anything you encounter are sturdy and reliable, they don't need protection from themselves.

[Steve A.]

Since TVs usually will work for well over a decade, I don't think turning off the power to them would really impact the wearing out and replacing them thing. I doubt replacing a TV in 12 years rather than 11 will impact the bottom line at RCA...

I know that some VCR's will lose their setup information if unplugged for awhile... are you sure that it also isn't true for some TV's? Not that turning off the tube (or tubeless) would shorten the life, it just might need to be reinitialized when you power it back up again.

I don't know if you've noticed but many of the new HVAC wall thermostats are getting away from batteries and are using capacitors, which will supply enough power to keep the clock going for a week. And most of the setup and program information is being stored on CMOS chips. So if a furnace loses power for more than a week, you will need to reset the day and time, but the program information should still be intact.

Amazing what they have come up with in the past 20 years... the first digital programmable RobertShaw had the worst user interface I could imagine: if you wanted the thermostat to shut off at 11:00PM you had to wait until 11:00PM to push the button. And if you wanted it to turn back on at 5:00AM you would have to wait until 5:00 in the morning to set it. Charging by the hour, it could cost a fortune to have one of these thermostats installed and programmed. To make matters worse, once you got it programmed, it would lose its memory within a week or two, so you had to go through that procedure all over again. (A guy working at a parts house gave me one of those thermostats, new in the box, because he couldn't return it to RobertShaw and he couldn't sell it in good faith to one of his customers.)

Of course Honeywell didn't do much better with their first digital setback thermostat. With Honeywell based in Minnesota their winters get very cold so they figured that if the thermostat were to fail that it ought to automatically bring the heater on. Of course those of us living in California would be perplexed why the heater would come on all by itself every now and then, even though the switch was set to OFF. And I'm sure it caused a lot of arguments and possibly even a few divorces among married couples ("I told you to turn the heater off!" )

But I digest...

Steve Ahola