+Terrence Miao 
in more-less-recent buildings wall outlets already have a little flip-switch, so you can switch off completely all those power adaptors and things in stand-by mode and other "hogs" when not using them (i.e. when leaving the home and at night)...

admittedly there is a bit of manual process involved - walking around the house and flipping them... might even require a couple of squats to be performed...
but... when was the last time when a little bit of light physical exercise killed a software developer? ;)

Might be of interest:
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_607&products_id=20147

This powerboard will switch off power to all the slave outlets when the master outlet is not drawing power.

+Oleg Kiorsak That's dumb switch instead of smart one. 

Turn off light switch and go to bed is NOT too hard. But if you have TV, computers, Hi-Fi stereo spread in a few more rooms, and some switch is really hard to reach, you really need this bug to help. Even taken five minutes to switch off all of them, it's still five minutes wasted, every day.

Someone says this world is created by the lazy people, not by smart and cunning men.

+Terrence Miao besides energy waste, there is also a fire safety aspect of all these transformers, adaptors, wires, and other "warm & cozy" thingies...

this is why personally I'd rather trust a "dumb" switch than a "smart" one...
;)

+Oleg Kiorsak I haven't seen one of those transformers catch alight before, and have to assume it would be very rare!  I've had them die, but usually when they die then that's it - caput.  No smoke or flames.

+Michael Poloni +Terrence Miao 
at my prev work, a colleague went to a vacation... some high-voltage power broke in the neighbourhood and touched the 'normal' lines... his PC literarily melted (for a software engineer that is quite dramatic event! ), TV (on standby) as well... surely cases like this are extremely rare, but the fact that I heard it firsthand makes it something to be aware about too...

I think a really good (especially for going on vacation(thing would be if the swithcboard and house wiring would have a separate dedicated line for an outlet in a kitchen that has the refrigerator in it, and the rest could be switched OFF...

   

+Terrence Miao check out this one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2196253/Blink-youll-miss-Eye-control-TV-arrives-lets-couch-potatoes-change-channel-lifting-finger.html
;-))

+Oleg Kiorsak There are something no one can predict, that's act of God. Caused meltdown due to SmartSwitch is still "ON" I have to say bad luck, and this time you should talk directly to God's agent - the insurance company. 

Do join life, car, home content insurance, Work Cover, professional indemnity, public liability, Medicare and private healthy insurance ...

I'm a shareholder of insurance companies :-P

+Terrence Miao 
ok, go ahead and try out "SmartSwitches"!... I guess that's not the worst of things our taxpayers money go to these days... ;-)

We just got given a smart powerboard by someone coming to the door.  In the past we have rejected the Embertec devices because the "technician" insists on "installing" it but I am not interested in any random joe coming into the house.  My wife was able to convince the powerboard guy to give it to her without coming inside so we took it.  You plug the TV into the "control" socket of the powerboard and it automatically shuts down the "slave" sockets (eg DVD, cordless headphone base station, receiver, etc) when it detects low power.  It has an IR Detector that it uses to remotely power everything back on.  It clearly must have its own "standby" but you have to trust it is less than all the other devices.  Here is a link: http://wattsclever.com/product/auto-power-board-AUS-ESAUS1001

+Bryan Murphy looks like a very sensible solution... I guess it also has a proper surge protector & filter like any normal powerboard would... ;)

Yeah it has surge and power protection.  It also has a feature (which could easily become annoying) that if it doesn't detect any IR for 1 hour it shuts down. It has some flashing lights warning you for 5 minutes so whilst at first it looks painful for when you are watching a 2 hour DVD, you would probably notice the flashing and hit something on the remote.  This feature has dubious value for me since I don't tend to leave the TV on but for people with TVs in their bedroom it could be handy.

+Bryan Murphy hei, that's a good feature - to make sure that whatever one is watching is actually worth it or they just been lazy to lift a finger and turn it off !! ;-)
 
(again see that link I already posted here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2196253/Blink-youll-miss-Eye-control-TV-arrives-lets-couch-potatoes-change-channel-lifting-finger.html 
;)