A Low-Cost IoT Solution for Phantom Energy Elimination from Household to Large-Scale Energy Savings

Standby power consumption, often referred to as phantom load, remains a persistent source of energy waste in households and information technology (IT) environments. Many appliances continue to draw power even when not in active use, contributing to unnecessary electricity expenses and long-term environmental impacts. This paper proposes an IoTbased intelligent standby energy-saving solution capable of automatically detecting and eliminating phantom consumption through a multi-condition decision mechanism. The system integrates an Arduino microcontroller with a current sensor to identify active, sleep, and standby states of connected devices, while a passive infrared motion sensor and a real-time clock module provide contextual awareness to prevent premature power cutoff. A relay switch is used to disconnect the load once standby conditions are confirmed. The proposed design is lowcost, programmable, and easy to deploy across various domestic and IT applications. Experimental tests using a laptop as the reference load demonstrate the system's ability to reduce standby power consumption to zero by disconnecting the supply whenever the device remains idle and no user presence is detected. This work highlights the potential of simple embedded systems to contribute to efficient energy management and paves the way for enhanced smart home solutions targeting phantom load elimination.