Shock over printer advice

[RichSedman]

I recently received an email regarding "Instant Ink" (of which I think it's a really worthwhile service) and I was quite shocked about the advice reported on the email. The email was an alert to notify me that the printer had not communicated with HP recently and stated :

What if I want to save energy?

There is no need to unplug or turn off the printer when not in use because the printer will go into sleep mode, which is energy efficient but still allows it to communicate with HP. If you’ve powered down temporarily because you’re out of town, no action is needed until you return.

I looked up the printer power usage in 'sleep' mode and discovered that it is 1.1W - seems like a small value.

However, on working out just how much power that uses it comes out as approximately 1KWH per month - which seems quite significant to me in these times of trying to reduce our impact on the environment, especially when you consider that this is the advice that a large corporation is giving to *millions* of users worldwide.

Would leaving the printer not connected to the internet really cause HP a problem? Presumably the next time the printer is used it will connect anyway - and update HP with its new state. If it is really needed to connect then the printer could prevent any further printing until after it had connected and validated its instant ink status - so I don't see how this could be a problem at all, from the point of view of providing the service.

Anyway, I wanted to put the question out there to see what other people think and hopefully to get an official response from HP themselves and what they can do to reduce global energy usage in any way possible (I know that by accepting and recycling the ink cartridges it's a big environmental saving already, but advising users to switch off unused devices would be even better). Further, if a user feels justified in leaving one device on then it could result in them also being in the mindset to do the same with other devices, multiplying up the unnecessary usage further!

This is in no way HP-bashing or anything against the Instant Ink service, simply that the comment in the email didn't sit well and I thought it worth asking the question. Every little saving can make a big difference.

Kind regards,

Rich