You may not have to feel so guilty about juicing up your smartphone every few hours, according to a new study conducted by OPower.
The study found that the electricity used to charge an iPhone 5 from 0% to full is almost
You may not have to feel so guilty about juicing up your smartphone every few hours, according to a new study conducted by OPower.
The study found that the electricity used to charge an iPhone 5 from 0% to full is almost inconsequential at $0.41 per year. The researchers compared the iPhone 5 to a Samsung Galaxy S III (the front-running Android device) and found similar rates — $0.53 per year.
Researchers say Samsung's slightly higher costs can be attributed to the phone's larger battery, but overall, OPower found that the "energy consumption of a modern smartphone is minuscule."
But it's not the individual rates that people should be concerned about, but the power of multiplication, head researcher for OPower, Barry Fischer tells Mashable.
OPower found the collective annual electricity consumption of the iPhone 5 sold within the next year will be equivalent to the annual electricity usage of 54,000 U.S. households. That's roughly equivalent to the size of Cedar Rapids, IA.
That means that even though each smartphone may not seem to make a global impact, when taken together they can really add up.
But there could be a plus side to the turn toward mobile consumption, OPower found. Smartphones allow us to use less "clunky, energy-intensive devices," meaning the savings from the entire country using phones instead of obsessively using tablets or PCs is substantial.
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