Point is they just work too if you don't want to do any of that. Plug them in, connect to their builtin wifi ap, read the power usage stats. Good button on the side that turns the power on and off too.

https://athom.aliexpress.com/store/group/Tasmota/5790427_517...

Esp8266 and a relay. Simple. Effective. Cheap. And just better than anything else I've seen in the space. Anyone has other recommendations I'm all ears.

I was ready for that. But it turned out that besides an idling rPI, modem, router and APs, nothing actually does. I have a bunch of zigbee connected smart plugs, and when I got those, I checked all my devices. Turned out regulations really do help, because all the standby usage was miniscule.

Easier to read the display on your phone ;)

A nice bonus is they soft-start (lower breaker trip risk) and no start capacitor to go bad. But more other electronics to fail.

I don't remember my bill going up when I added a freezer, I didn't really measure though.

Whereas, when you open an upright one, cold air immediately starts pouring out the bottom of the opening, with warmer air coming in at the top to replace it.

Your chest freezer will typically use about the same about of yearly kWh as a standing freezer would, but the chest freezer will typically have about 30% more capacity.

So.. it's "better," but if you're not going to keep it full, you may not actually be saving any total energy.

Chest freezers have better insulation and door seals, which is why they're more efficient.

> Chest freezers have better [...] door seals

Hmm.

Is it outlandish to think that a modern standing freezer with working seals will let less air out the seals than is exchanged by opening the door even a couple of times a week?

Modern standing freezers are starting to get drawers with sides in them now, presumably for reducing air loss while it's open. And seals are practically air-tight (if you've lived in a place with high humidity, even tiny gaps or holes in the seal causes noticeable condensation and water build up. So I'm skeptical about the seal claim. Better insulation may be true.

I think the idea is that the seals can conduct heat, and do so much better than whatever abitrarily-sophisticated thermal isolation is in the walls of the freezer, not that the airflow through the seals is carrying any significant amount of heat.

In ether case modern doors build out an insulating section around the seal, and the seal itself creates a second seal against that so it's air gapped inside the freezer as well. The seal itself of course is a hollow tube which is somewhat of an air gap with the outside too. They're pretty good, I would be surprised for their small surface area if they caused a huge conductive loss.

Chest freezer seals are far better than upright freezer seals because:

* The length of the seal is smaller compared to volume,

* The height of the seal is not constrained by the closing magnets (as mechanical latches are not legal on consumer freezers),

* The temperature differential at the top of the freezer is smallest.

The specific heat capacity of air at constant pressure is ~1 kJ/kg K and 1 m^3 air has a mass of ~1.2 kg, so 1 kJ/kg K * 1.2 kg = 1.1 kJ/K. Even a freezer that exchanges 2 m^3 of air for outside air at say a 70K differential (the difference between -40C and a 30C room) for each opening only has to remove 1.1kJ/K * 2 * 70K = 154kJ, or 0.05 kWh, which is the standard unit of electricity.

An unit of residential electricity in the most expensive US State (Hawaii) is 41.2c / kWh, so opening our enormous freezer in the worst possible conditions and completely exchanging the air using the most expensive electricity costs us 2¢. It's a complete non-factor.

Source for prices: https://www.energybot.com/electricity-rates-by-state.html

closewith (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32890571) is saying that:

> Chest freezers have better insulation and door seals

I'm not claiming anything either way, just pointing out that the seals are for sealing heat, not (primarily) air.

The US requires all consumer appliances to have an Energy Guide sticker (the yellow and black thing) which estimates an annual KWh use and cost at average electric prices. My cheapo 4cuft chest freezer uses about 200 KWh annually, or about $25. Not nothing, but $2 a month isn't going to register compared to most things.

I found a pioneer amp that sucked 200W sitting there doing nothing. No increase when volume was turned up either. I compared to an older 1970s model that started at 3w and went up from there with the volume.