Do you turn the cable box off?

No. I don't. I usually just cut the tv itself off at night but leave the cable box on.

You should definitely turn it off. If you have it plugged into the wall, it is still going to use up some electricity. If you want it to use zero while it is off, plug it into a surge protector.

yes it does. You would be amazed at how much electrisity we use just by leaving things on standby. For your economy and the environment it is always best to turn things completely off or pulling the plug when things are not in use.

i think anything with heat draws elec like vcr box's running ,lights, i cant stand things running that are not being used. people leave there tvs running non stop

I usually leave mine on since we are on different sleep schedules around the house. By the time I go to bed he's usually getting up or sometimes we both lay down and watch a movie and fall asleep while watching it. Just depends on the day. I rarely ever shut off the cable box though.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea. I turn it off anyway though, since the slightest light can keep me awake when I'm trying to sleep. I can't have any lights on when I'm trying to sleep, and no sounds either, except the fan that I have on in my room. My mom always tells me to turn it off before I go to bed too, she says it wastes electricity too. I don't know, maybe our moms are right!

I do switch off the TV and the cable box at nights.I hate the red light and live electricity all night.You cant say what will happen with the erratic power spikes here.And you sure save a lot of power by doing this.

I don't know if it saves electricity...but my husband makes us switch off everything, when we switch off the T.V. - the cable box and the T.V.'s main switch too.

No ours stays on all th etime but yes it does make a difference if ya turn it off or now also they say to unplug your cell phone charger when not in use unplug puter and all when not using it

First the quick answer... no. Second the facts. Out of all small appliances that can be turned off the cable-box 'leaks' power more than any other. It uses approximately 11 watts of power (per hour). Do the math and you have... 11 * 24 * 30 = 7900 watts that it is drawing per month. That is 7.9KW of power or approximately 50¢/month of usage. Other devices such as clock radios/microwaves/tvs/computers/etc... in standby mode take up a lot less power but do drain a bit of power even when they are off (the TV keeps the channels etc...). You are talking a couple dollars a month of savings a month which to me to go around unplugging everything everynight to save 1/2 that much (off for 12 hours) just doesn't make any sense. Thanks Zelo

I guess you aren't using electricity because it is turned off and not being used.I always turn off my cablr box when I am not watching t.v.

im not sure if it does or not ill have to run an expeirement but... my father always said even tho its NOT being used if its plugged in then the electricity is still *running* through it so... it might be true that its still using ur electricity even when its off but at a lower grade!!(?) Im sure that goes for anything electrical :) As i asid i really dont know ...my father is VERY OLD SCHOOL so hed forever be behind us turning off anything we werent using lol lol XX

i turn it off whenever I can. But I'm mostly not around there to do it.

Well if you really look at it your saving on some power usage by turning it off but it doesn't really use that much power that it would hurt to leave it on all night. My cable box turns off and turns off the tv when I hit the power button on the remote so it don't matter to much to me. But if it just turned off the tv I'd leave the cable box on cause like I said it doesn't really make much of a difference in power usage.

it could but not very much i think!

I turn off the cable box, but that's how I'm turning off the tv since I don't have a tv remote.

There was another discussion about this that I responded to last week. That actually will save you some money on your electric bill. As a matter of fact, unplugging all appliances when they are not in use, whether they have a standby mode or not, will save you a little on your electric bill, although I would have to ask my sister how much. (Works at the local gas and electric company.)

I leave mine on at all times. In fact just the other day I was looking at the cable box as I was about to go to bed, and i was wondering if it realy made a difference in what I pay every month. So I did the very American thing and said "its not that serious" and went to bed. Do you see a difference in your bill when you turn the box off?

No I don't because it doesn't turn off... at least not that I'm aware of. We're with Dish Network and is a bit different. I want to change to cable so bad because the tv stays on during bad storms where satellite dishes don't. I'm so worried to be hit again with a tornato before we're to take cover. Besides, I have 9 cats and 5 dogs to consider too.