Switch off quick-start in your tv settings

Many modern televisions have a feature called quick-start. Though each brand calls it something different like "Qstart+", "Fast TV Start" or "telly go on fast now please."

Quick-start is a setting that reduces the time it takes your television to switch on by roughly seven seconds.¹ That is all it does. However, to do this your tv uses much more energy when it's on standby.

Standby is when your tv appears to be off but is using just enough power to listen for a signal from your remote to switch on — it is often indicated by a little red light. For quick-start to work more components in your tv need to remain powered even when it appears to be off.

Practical betterments is all about saving seconds here and there, but having quick-start enabled uses more energy — costing you more money.

Depending on the age of your tv, switching off quick-start could save you between $3.50² and $60³ a year.

All costs are based on the current price of energy in California⁴ because that's where all the people inside my television live.

How much extra energy does quick-start use?

The amount quick-start costs varies depending on the model of your television but here's an example of a very bad one:

Most tvs from around 2014 are not as bad as that, but some are even worse.

Newer tvs use much less energy on quick-start. This is all thanks to 2012 Nobel peace prize laureate — the European Union.

You can find your tv's quick-start energy consumption by searching the model on European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL).

Note: EPREL refers to quick-start as networked standby mode

But what about those wasted seven seconds?

Quick-start only saves you 7 seconds each time you switch your tv on — almost 20 minutes a year assuming you switch your tv on every day.

If your tv is brand new, you're effectively trading $3.50 a year to save 20 minutes.

Extrapolated to an hour and that's the equivalent of earning $10.50 an hour, higher than the US federal minimum wage.

Plus, it's not really a waste of time because those extra seconds are used to shuffle about and get comfy.

EU regulations rabbit hole

Now, I don't actually expect you to read this bit, but I did lots of research and I don't see why I'm the only person who should have to suffer. I've added a single lie to keep you on your toes, see if you can spot it.

In 2008 the EU created rules around how much energy devices could use when they were on standby.⁵

Even if you don't live in the EU, these regulations make your tv more efficient because it's cheaper for tv manufacturers to make all their tvs the same, instead of making worse ones just for Americans.

However, if your tv was made before 2015 and has an internet connection it could be using lots of energy when it's on standby because television manufactures added "quick-start" as a new standby mode — and because the tvs connected to WiFi the manufacturers could claim it's a special standby mode that could do things like check for updates. It allowed the tvs to skirt the regulations.

So the EU changed the rules saying, you can have as many standby modes as you want but they have to adhere to our regulations. Since, internet connected devices use more energy, they added a new category of standby mode to the regulations called "networked standby." ⁶

Because of these regulations, if your tv was made between 2015 and 2019 it won't use anymore than an additional 5 watts. Which will cost you around $11 a year. Newer tvs use only an additional 1.5 watts which is only around $3.50 a year.

...and that is why the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize.⁷

Tags

• saving money
• saving energy
• entertainment

Published

19 Jan 2026

Updated

19 Jan 2026