Just googled them. According to a BBC news article: All five Dragons pledged investment in the Standby Saver, a seemingly unique plug-like device for cutting the power wasted by appliances when left in standby mode. But the original deal was based upon a patent that the inventors Peter Ensinger and David Baker needed to protect their product. In the end the situation could not be resolved and their deal fell through. But that is not the end of the story. Peter and David subsequently found another investor to buy into the product, and while Peter will not reveal exactly how much he made from the deal he does tell us he never needs to work again, which sounds like a pretty satisfying outcome - from his perspective at least.
To be fair, he is what? 60-65. He only has ~20 years left so £500K would give him £25K to live on each year. While half a mil is a decent amount, its not earth shattering if one's lifestyle is not extravagant.
I cant see this making millions. I dont know anybody that ever used it. Plus this would have worked better for CRTs which were phased out quickly after this.
@Garycarlyle if it was licenced and put into tvs like they were talking about then it wouldn't be on the end consumer to buy it so you may have never heard of it but it could well have made a lot of money
Apparently the reason for that being they were at a party or something and peters wife was all over Richard at the party basically falling into him. He has it out for him ever since that
Yeah, asking for 50% is robbery. I'm surprised they didn't even come back with a counter-offer. The dragons obviously wanted in so I would have gone back and said 6% each.
disagree a little. The fact you have 5 of them all so keen and with a good investment in, it seems like they would all want to get rich from it and the creators will hugely benefit too
Nope, deal feel through because the patent wasnt good enough. However: "Peter and David subsequently found another investor to buy into the product, and while Peter will not reveal exactly how much he made from the deal he does tell us he never needs to work again, which sounds like a pretty satisfying outcome - from his perspective at least." from bbc
In the early 2000s, our old TV would lose all of the TV channel signals if the power went off so it had to be left in standby. Guessing he didn't consider this.
you just gotta look for the Updates Guy in the comment section haha sometimes the Update Guys’ info is outdated, and sometimes I think they might be straight up lying just to troll people, but for the most part they’re pretty helpful & informative :)
@@severalwolves i get it. uloading Videos of the these budinesses is not enough Providing an update would get more people to watch the shark tan Videos.
But here is the issue, are you looking for how the business is doing? the product? the business men? Those can all be different answers. The businessman could have sold it for big $$ in a few years and the business itself went belly up. It could have merged with another business and the product pitched never went anywhere but the business is successful. And some just limp along for years never going under, but never really bringing in any big profits.
This makes no sense. They're using a rechargeable battery so that the device draws zero mains power when the TV's on standby. But charging that battery is less than 100% efficient. Using mains electricity to charge the battery and then using the battery to power the device uses more electricity than just using mains power directly. Furthermore, that battery will only support a fixed number of charge cycles so, eventually, the product will become e-waste simply because its battery has expired. In contrast, if it was powered directly from the mains, the product would work "forever." So the battery (which is their patent-protected part) actually makes the product _worse._
The device manufacturers have the ability to just not set the devices on stand by. They use the stand by function for the quick startup/boot up on devices. They could easily just skip the stand by functionality if they wanted to.
Yeah that is correct, they don't need an internal battery either if it is plugged into the mains (like in their patent ..... surely their extension block could have use a fraction of a watt powered direct from the mains...not sure what the battery is for ??) ..standby mode is just so you don't have to wait for the TV to "boot"
That was also my first thought. Not realistic. By the way, my setup box uses a lot in standby, but if I unplug it, it looses all the channels. It takes the device about 10 min to find all channels again.
I am not that smart. Wouldnt this Plugthing still need Power itself to recieve the signal to power up the TV? Just relocating the Power consumption from the TV to itself??
@@shogunero3.6 and are you not thinking about the EXTRA electricity that it takes to charge that battery? now 20 guys times 250 quid becomes an interesting business model!
The point is that the plugthing only uses a small amount of power. But then, of course, the obvious solution is just to incorporate that low-power thing directly into the TV.
My first thought is, wouldn't there be power drawn by the device itself, probably not a lot to keep the LCD screen on though unless they use a built in battery that it recharges and switches to when not empty o.o
The EU has made much stricter rules about standby mode since this aired. Rules like "less than 1w" or even half a watt are standard now. Good idea at the time though.
If you have a 3-bedroom house you could say that five rooms need this so then it is the total of all those devices that this will save money on stand by, but I don't know of one TV that that uses 20 watts on stand by doing so it will take at least 3 years to recoup your spend which won't interest a lot of prospective buyers, saving less than 20 pounds to buy this. There is also not much profit in a device he is selling for 20 pounds.
Wait, they charge a battery when the device is on? So, the power that it would have used in standby is used while the device is active. And storing and discharging electricity is less efficient than using the energy immediately. This is pure snake oil. It just pushes all the expenses to runtime at a higher price without solving the problem.
No, cos it can read and store the remote codes from your existing remote, and it contains a rechargeable battery that powers it when you've turned your TV off. So, you can still turn your TV on and off with your remote, but no electricity is being drawn from the mains when the TV is off.
@@TheRealDJSigma But the battery makes the product worse! Instead of drawing a tiny amount of energy from the mains to power the device, it uses a slightly larger amount of energy to charge the battery -- since charging batteries is not 100% efficient. Even worse, the rechargeable battery will eventually fail, leading to the whole thing becoming useless. If, instead, they just powered the thing directly from the mains, it would last "forever".
@@beeble2003 Obviously it doesn't draw MORE power or the whole thing would be pointless, lol. They showed the power draw of the TV in standby and it was drawing 20 Watts. That's far more than it takes to charge a battery, plus that's a constant draw while the TV is on standby, while the battery will stop charging when it's full. Also, there's no reason why the battery couldn't be replaceable. What has killed the market for devices like this is that TVs are far more efficient in standby than they were when this episode was filmed.
What a bunch of thieves. Ask for 50% of such a company and patent. This is outrageous. I would have said I am offended by that offer. How could they value this business at 200k? That is beyond greedy. It's idiotic.
@@renning1090 5x 10% is equal to 50%. Also I am glad this didn't go through after due diligence. If it was to actually happen it would have been outrageous.
@@webrevolution. My point was you are getting 5 investors, not one. 5 dragons with connections in various industries, and some lobbying power you will need if you want to mandate these things in TVs.
and that two guys know that they didn't do anything extraordinary, they've just framed the kinda existing project (turning on and off the appliances with the IR remote using microcontroller) into "environmental" thing
They claim to have a patent on one specific design feature of the product -- the use of the rechargeable battery. Only problem is, that feature makes the product worse. Charging the battery instead of just using mains power directly means the product uses more electricity -- charging batteries isn't 100% efficient. Even worse, the battery will eventually fail, at which point the product is no longer useful. If they just used mains power directly to power the device, it would last "forever".
My television draws 0.4 watts on standy. At current electricity rates it will cost me less than 8p a month. It would take me over twenty years to recover the cost of this device.
its a simple SPLD that costs 17 pence from maplin that has been programmed with "IF voltage LESS THAN 25 THEN power off". The use-case is so ubiquitous it cannot be patented. Yes some company stumped up a 100k because it could get to market in 3 days rather than shell-out £1m on their overpaid in-house product development team. Since then every company has addressed the standby concerns without having to pay a single penny to anyone. Why did the Dragons go out of their way to caveat their offers around the patent - because they suspected this, but did not want to chance losing the deal on the outside chance this guy was on to something. They had nothing to lose. I feel kinda bad for these guys - you can see from the way they talk they are just plain honest people.
@@graemeyetts3465 they aren't, in fact. Nobody is required to invent something, but they're successfully framed an existing concept and project to a product, and that's their value. And battery btw would last long, because at the time when someone's watching tv, the battery would be charged, and that additional power "increase" is a less than miniscule; on other side, since it was designed for a tv, an appliance that would be turned on every day at least once in average, battery just needs to provide the power for the microcontroller for the rest of the day. Even non-rechargeable, just simple 9V battery could provide enough power for that thingamajig to run for a year
Yeah, bs marketing. Using 0 because it is using battery that been charged during tv operation! It like me plugging a TV in to UPS and saying the same bs.
Just googled them. According to a BBC news article:
All five Dragons pledged investment in the Standby Saver, a seemingly unique plug-like device for cutting the power wasted by appliances when left in standby mode.
But the original deal was based upon a patent that the inventors Peter Ensinger and David Baker needed to protect their product.
In the end the situation could not be resolved and their deal fell through.
But that is not the end of the story.
Peter and David subsequently found another investor to buy into the product, and while Peter will not reveal exactly how much he made from the deal he does tell us he never needs to work again, which sounds like a pretty satisfying outcome - from his perspective at least.
Any clue was tech is using this today?
To be fair, he is what? 60-65. He only has ~20 years left so £500K would give him £25K to live on each year. While half a mil is a decent amount, its not earth shattering if one's lifestyle is not extravagant.
Cheers Jimmy 👍👍👍
I cant see this making millions. I dont know anybody that ever used it. Plus this would have worked better for CRTs which were phased out quickly after this.
@Garycarlyle if it was licenced and put into tvs like they were talking about then it wouldn't be on the end consumer to buy it so you may have never heard of it but it could well have made a lot of money
The stairs used to claim people’s lives 😂
Glad they're showing the old clips. Was much better with Duncan and Theo on the show
theo the fetus
I left my VCR on once and when I came home it had used almost an entire bag of coal… 🤦♂️
Should of got a betamax 😂
I cane😢
Switch to wood pellets, they burn more cleanly.
I suppose you shovel it.
That shorter chap uses about 100 watts trying to breathe in standby mode
It made me extremely uncomfortable.
lmfao
It's not often a RUclips comment makes me audibly laugh
😂😂😂😂😂
Considering he has down syndrome I think he did very well
This is the first time I’ve ever seen Richard agree with Peter lol
They really didn't like each other did they 😂
Apparently the reason for that being they were at a party or something and peters wife was all over Richard at the party basically falling into him. He has it out for him ever since that
50% offer, they should have said "get back to us when you're sober" and walked out.
Yeah, asking for 50% is robbery. I'm surprised they didn't even come back with a counter-offer. The dragons obviously wanted in so I would have gone back and said 6% each.
Exactly.......never accept the first low ball offer
disagree a little. The fact you have 5 of them all so keen and with a good investment in, it seems like they would all want to get rich from it and the creators will hugely benefit too
Dragons Den is better than Shark Tank cause you can hear all the ASMR labored nervous breathing.
Nope, deal feel through because the patent wasnt good enough. However:
"Peter and David subsequently found another investor to buy into the product, and while Peter will not reveal exactly how much he made from the deal he does tell us he never needs to work again, which sounds like a pretty satisfying outcome - from his perspective at least."
from bbc
In the early 2000s, our old TV would lose all of the TV channel signals if the power went off so it had to be left in standby. Guessing he didn't consider this.
Wow, that must be old. For at least 10 years home appliances in EU must not draw more than 0.5W in stamdby
"Wow, that must be old."
Yes, first broadcast over 17 years ago, in March 2007.
See mankind can work together for good! We can solve it! Every TV set standby 0.5 watts per hour or less.
He keeps looking at Peter! 😂😂😂
Seem like a couple of good blokes, glad things worked out for them :>
Message to the person who uploads these fantastic Videos, "PLEASE PROVIDE UPDATES".We want to know how are these business doing.
you just gotta look for the Updates Guy in the comment section haha
sometimes the Update Guys’ info is outdated, and sometimes I think they might be straight up lying just to troll people, but for the most part they’re pretty helpful & informative :)
@@severalwolves i get it. uloading Videos of the these budinesses is not enough Providing an update would get more people to watch the shark tan Videos.
Google is your friend
Google it
But here is the issue, are you looking for how the business is doing? the product? the business men?
Those can all be different answers. The businessman could have sold it for big $$ in a few years and the business itself went belly up. It could have merged with another business and the product pitched never went anywhere but the business is successful. And some just limp along for years never going under, but never really bringing in any big profits.
Bro inhaled all the electricity
This makes no sense. They're using a rechargeable battery so that the device draws zero mains power when the TV's on standby. But charging that battery is less than 100% efficient. Using mains electricity to charge the battery and then using the battery to power the device uses more electricity than just using mains power directly. Furthermore, that battery will only support a fixed number of charge cycles so, eventually, the product will become e-waste simply because its battery has expired. In contrast, if it was powered directly from the mains, the product would work "forever." So the battery (which is their patent-protected part) actually makes the product _worse._
The deal didn't work out, the "Dragons" bailed out after the show, & I don't believe anything much came of it, possibly for the reason u suggest
DD is more about entertainment than serious business ideas.
The device manufacturers have the ability to just not set the devices on stand by. They use the stand by function for the quick startup/boot up on devices. They could easily just skip the stand by functionality if they wanted to.
Yeah that is correct, they don't need an internal battery either if it is plugged into the mains (like in their patent ..... surely their extension block could have use a fraction of a watt powered direct from the mains...not sure what the battery is for ??) ..standby mode is just so you don't have to wait for the TV to "boot"
Here is a crazy thought process go up to the wall and turn the switch off at the wall and boom no need to be on standby mode.
Apart from when the switch is behind a tv unit? Great idea Columbo really convienent
@@501commander who’s idea was it to put a tv stand in front of a socket that you’d no longer be able to reach. Yes that’s a genius idea columbo
Genius idea think people should try that save a fcukin fortune 😂
Sad that Richard Farleigh left after the first time all 5 dragons invested in a business.
"50% of a lot of money or 100% of nothing"
More entrepreneurs need to realise this
Peter is such a gentlemen. faultless in his exchanges
Beautiful manner.
13:33 taller dude is starting to cry at the very end
This is a very old clip, the 20w is the device, not the end device..
Wifi sockets are the thing now, even lower, tiny wattage!!
You can just use a standard power strip and turn the power strip off before you leave
20w on standby?!! Thats a busted TV. Lol.
thats what I thought, I measured my TV on standby found it to be 0.2w
@@colinwintermanit’s not the early 2000s anymore of course your tv shows far less wattage
@@3Mizormac Fair point mate
That was also my first thought. Not realistic. By the way, my setup box uses a lot in standby, but if I unplug it, it looses all the channels. It takes the device about 10 min to find all channels again.
20W even for a CRT on standby isn't normal though. @@3Mizormac
Wonder how many watts is uses to charge the battery.
Watt?
I am not that smart. Wouldnt this Plugthing still need Power itself to recieve the signal to power up the TV? Just relocating the Power consumption from the TV to itself??
Didnt you hear the part where they mentioned about the rechargeable battery sitting inside that unit
When the TV runs, it charges up a rechargeable battery which is then used later once the TV is on standby
@@shogunero3.6 and are you not thinking about the EXTRA electricity that it takes to charge that battery?
now 20 guys times 250 quid becomes an interesting business model!
The point is that the plugthing only uses a small amount of power. But then, of course, the obvious solution is just to incorporate that low-power thing directly into the TV.
@@shogunero3.6yes but the power needed to charge the battery still needs to come from somewhere
environment and "compulsory" makes me brrrrrr
I don't use stand by,just turn things off properly.
you must be fun at parties!
unless you have your TV outlet on a switch, you might be surprised
Brilliant
My first thought is, wouldn't there be power drawn by the device itself, probably not a lot to keep the LCD screen on though unless they use a built in battery that it recharges and switches to when not empty o.o
About 2w in total.
Yall mfs know this is from the early 2000s right?
Yall commenting like this is from 2024 😂
Yall commenting like you are from Alabama
@@guiltdesignator5333 florida
@@guiltdesignator5333😅😅😅
@@guiltdesignator5333Y’all come back now y’hear!
The EU has made much stricter rules about standby mode since this aired. Rules like "less than 1w" or even half a watt are standard now.
Good idea at the time though.
If you have a 3-bedroom house you could say that five rooms need this so then it is the total of all those devices that this will save money on stand by, but I don't know of one TV that that uses 20 watts on stand by doing so it will take at least 3 years to recoup your spend which won't interest a lot of prospective buyers, saving less than 20 pounds to buy this. There is also not much profit in a device he is selling for 20 pounds.
Does anyone know what happened to these guys?
Apparently the deal fell through but they got another investor and made loads of money. Looks like these things are still being sold online.
@@JimmyMac-jo3zh that’s great, couldn’t find the product anywhere tho
The deal fell through, but thankfully the lads fell back on their lucrative male modelling contracts at the end of the day!
Yes I do...
Should have countered with 7.5 %
They would have taken it
modern TVs typically use between 0.5 and 3 watts.
Good god 50%!?! They should have countered 35% MAX. I'm glad they managed to drop the deal and get rich on their own.
I may be old fashioned but personally I use the off button.
I’m starting to believe that no one should go in Dragons’ Den without a patent in hand.
Should be in the wall power point not the appliance
The Driscoll brothers have moved on from dodgy mobile phones that make you tv go all funny.
My name is Peter and my twin brother’s name is David!👍
Wait, they charge a battery when the device is on? So, the power that it would have used in standby is used while the device is active. And storing and discharging electricity is less efficient than using the energy immediately. This is pure snake oil. It just pushes all the expenses to runtime at a higher price without solving the problem.
Could just turn an ordinary power strip off.
But it's all the way across the roooooom and I don't wanna get out of my chaaaaaair.
VHS….. 📼 how old is this one! Haha. We’re streaming now!
does your streaming device run on electricity?
Dude sounded like he was about to drop dead.
TAKE!? Where a broken WINGS? A flie wurld?
So if its in a tv and the battery packs up what happens then
That TV had to be rigged, no TV consumes 20W on standby, more like 0.5W 1W at most
when will we have a Doug episode?
Could save yourself a bit of money by just pressing the switch 😬
Isn’t this just a switch? Like what is already on most extension leads?
No, cos it can read and store the remote codes from your existing remote, and it contains a rechargeable battery that powers it when you've turned your TV off. So, you can still turn your TV on and off with your remote, but no electricity is being drawn from the mains when the TV is off.
@@TheRealDJSigma But the battery makes the product worse! Instead of drawing a tiny amount of energy from the mains to power the device, it uses a slightly larger amount of energy to charge the battery -- since charging batteries is not 100% efficient. Even worse, the rechargeable battery will eventually fail, leading to the whole thing becoming useless. If, instead, they just powered the thing directly from the mains, it would last "forever".
@@beeble2003 Obviously it doesn't draw MORE power or the whole thing would be pointless, lol. They showed the power draw of the TV in standby and it was drawing 20 Watts. That's far more than it takes to charge a battery, plus that's a constant draw while the TV is on standby, while the battery will stop charging when it's full. Also, there's no reason why the battery couldn't be replaceable.
What has killed the market for devices like this is that TVs are far more efficient in standby than they were when this episode was filmed.
If you close your eyes, you can date the early episodes by how out of breath they are after walking up the stairs.
They look like side characters from the Addams Family
Wow Huge lessons in Bussiness
Where’s Jenny?
“ out?!”
They were so bad at negotiating. They didn't need 5 dragons. They should've went for 2 dragons with less equity. 50% 😮
Hows this one doing now ?
that one dudes definitely making them at night.
Has anyone used a “VCR” since about 1998? 😂
What a bunch of thieves. Ask for 50% of such a company and patent. This is outrageous. I would have said I am offended by that offer. How could they value this business at 200k? That is beyond greedy. It's idiotic.
Actually it was 10% x5, but it was also 0% cause the deal fell through over the patent issue
@@renning1090 5x 10% is equal to 50%. Also I am glad this didn't go through after due diligence. If it was to actually happen it would have been outrageous.
@@webrevolution. My point was you are getting 5 investors, not one. 5 dragons with connections in various industries, and some lobbying power you will need if you want to mandate these things in TVs.
and that two guys know that they didn't do anything extraordinary, they've just framed the kinda existing project (turning on and off the appliances with the IR remote using microcontroller) into "environmental" thing
Playstation was designed to download games 20x faster in rest mode.
Grilled cheese for dinner 😊
5 Dragons ... disaster!!
Marginal returns would be negative after the best two.
McDonald's delivery for food tonight , 😋 blooming scrumptious
Where Dragoon Reins? Twy Google mups?
You cannot patent anti-standby LOL.
They claim to have a patent on one specific design feature of the product -- the use of the rechargeable battery. Only problem is, that feature makes the product worse. Charging the battery instead of just using mains power directly means the product uses more electricity -- charging batteries isn't 100% efficient. Even worse, the battery will eventually fail, at which point the product is no longer useful. If they just used mains power directly to power the device, it would last "forever".
5 intelligent and successful people behave like deluded idiots IMO.
Classic..🎉😂
My television draws 0.4 watts on standy. At current electricity rates it will cost me less than 8p a month. It would take me over twenty years to recover the cost of this device.
Yeah but your tv is not from 2003 is it ???
Quite possible it is something similar to this device in it already.
20 w in standby mode? 😂 Is it really so easy to BS pitch even the “dragons”?
5 Dragons! Congratulations to these 2 entrepreneurs that are going to be part of life changing experience 👍👍
its a simple SPLD that costs 17 pence from maplin that has been programmed with "IF voltage LESS THAN 25 THEN power off". The use-case is so ubiquitous it cannot be patented. Yes some company stumped up a 100k because it could get to market in 3 days rather than shell-out £1m on their overpaid in-house product development team. Since then every company has addressed the standby concerns without having to pay a single penny to anyone. Why did the Dragons go out of their way to caveat their offers around the patent - because they suspected this, but did not want to chance losing the deal on the outside chance this guy was on to something. They had nothing to lose. I feel kinda bad for these guys - you can see from the way they talk they are just plain honest people.
They are charlatans IMO.
@@graemeyetts3465 they aren't, in fact. Nobody is required to invent something, but they're successfully framed an existing concept and project to a product, and that's their value. And battery btw would last long, because at the time when someone's watching tv, the battery would be charged, and that additional power "increase" is a less than miniscule; on other side, since it was designed for a tv, an appliance that would be turned on every day at least once in average, battery just needs to provide the power for the microcontroller for the rest of the day. Even non-rechargeable, just simple 9V battery could provide enough power for that thingamajig to run for a year
What happens if you just unplug your TV? Unplug your VCR? Saved you $20!! 😮🎉
Why would you bother to unplug your TV if you could just turn it off instead?
Just get rid of the VCR at that point
If I switch off my smart TV it takes longer to start up than an old valve TV. Life's too short to worry about saving 20 Watts.
Yeah, bs marketing. Using 0 because it is using battery that been charged during tv operation! It like me plugging a TV in to UPS and saying the same bs.
These guys have no idea what they are talking about.
Not dragons den, more like "rat cage"
wow they have invented a power board that is on all the time to suck power instead of an appliance in standby mode
No neck
Two gaffas look like they would rob me
“CO2 emissions ruining the planet” 😂😂😂😂😂😂😩😩😩😩😩😩
Grifters
how so, inventors that made it to dragons den. You are commenting likely from a council house on benefits.
@@Shrooms-up6svyou're funny. It's BS. I'm pretty well off and intelligent, that's why I know it's nonsense.
I sometimes run the warm tap after a dump and pretend i am washing my ✋️ hands after i had a dump
My turn?
also, just think, you could have 30 guys doing this for you! now 30x 250 quid starts to become an interesting business model!
First?
First guy getting proper out of breath whilst talking...