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Turn a screen off on a schedule

Do you want your screen to switch off at night to save power and extend the life of the panel? There are two ways to do it, depending on your device.

In gibeon.io: off-zones in your planning

In a planning you add an off-zone: a time window (for example 22:00 to 07:00) in which the screen goes off. Outside that window your regular content plays. You do not have to plan an “on” moment, the screen is on by default.

What gibeon.io then does depends on the type of device:

  • A device with its own screen (tablet, a Smart TV with built-in Android, a monitor): gibeon.io dims the screen to black and sets the brightness to the minimum. That really saves power (the backlight is the biggest consumer).
  • A stick that drives a TV (Xiaomi TV Stick, Chromecast with Google TV, Fire TV): gibeon.io shows a black image, but a stick has no screen of its own and cannot switch off the TV’s backlight itself. The picture is black, but the TV technically stays on.

Really switching off a TV behind a stick

Do you want the TV itself to switch off completely (not just go black)? Use one of these, in order of reliability:

  1. A smart plug with a timer (from about €10). Set it to switch the TV off at night and on in the morning. This works on any TV, regardless of brand or settings, and is the most reliable.
  2. The TV’s own sleep timer or “auto off”. Almost every TV has this in its own settings.
  3. HDMI-CEC. Many TVs can switch the connected stick on and off along with them via CEC. Turn CEC on in the TV settings (it is often called something different per brand: Bravia Sync, Anynet+, SimpLink, …).