• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    14 hours ago

    I use a Mini-PC with an N100 CPU.

    It literally has a peak consumption of 15W, though I seldom see it go above 10% CPU usage (which is nice because even the small fan it has almost never goes on) so even when I’m actually using it as a TV box it consumes a lot less than 15W. It consumes even less when idle.

    So it’s always ON.

    As a side benefit it’s my home NAS and a bittorrent server managed via a web-interface, both things for which it makes even to have a machine always running.

    Haven’t actually seen any difference in my power bill.

    • Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      14 hours ago

      That’s cool that you’re using it as a nas, and I’m glad it’s working out for you

      Myself, I want something easily controllable from a remote, so that when I come back from work I can just relax without seeing a keyboard and having to work with a pc.

      I tried Librelec and lineageOS TV into a mini pc, but they all had various quirks, so I’m sticking to my TCL for now.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        13 hours ago

        Absolutelly, if you can’t use it with a remote and have to use a keyboard and mouse it’s not the same thing.

        However, my setup is easilly controllable with a remote: I have Kodi running always on top in it and use one of these.

        With that the sofa experience is the same as with a dedicated TV Box (except that the remote can’t power it ON, only OFF, but for me it’s fine since I leave it always ON) because that remote just sends the right “keypresses” to control Kodi (apparently the shortcut keys are standard) so from a user point of view one interacts with it the same as with a TV Box or Smart TV.

        The PC-ish stuff (such as managing the bittorrent server) I do remotelly from my main PC via SSH and web interfaces.

        Mind you, I have a keyboard and mouse connected to it because sometimes I want to use the browser, but if all you’re doing is watching stuff like with a TV Box, that’s not needed.