Before one can fully grasp how smart power strips work, it's essential that you understand what is vampire power drain. When you switch off an electrical appliance, you would think that it stops consuming electrical power. However, that is not so, as devices draw power even when they are switched off or on standby mode, as long as they are plugged into electrical outlets. Several watts of power can be lost through this kind of vampire power or standby power drain.
To estimate the power loss that occurs in the form of standby power in your home, switch off all your appliances or put them on standby mode. Switch off all other electrical devices and then measure the electrical usage by noting meter readings. As you will discover, standby power consumption can be as high as or more than 5% of the total daily power consumption, depending on the number of appliances. Realizing this problem, electronic device manufacturers came up with smart power strips that can reduce this power depletion substantially. In the following lines, we dive into the working of smart power strips