Save time AND the environment with this new gadget that encourages people to shut down their laptops more often. Finally, the product that the market has been clamoring for: the laptop remote-start key fob.

Background:

Some cars have a “remote start” feature to start a car before you actually get inside. This feature is typically used in regions with extremely cold weather.

The issue:

Some people like to entirely turn off their laptops when traveling or over a weekend.

But then they have to wait a couple of minutes for their laptop to boot, log in, and start all their applications / open documents again.

Think of all the lost productivity!

Proposal:

Instead of losing precious time on Monday morning waiting for a shut-down-over-the-weekend laptop to boot, your laptop could have a special low-power “wake up” mode activated by a remote control. This would be exactly like a car remote-unlock key fob.

A comparison of laptops with and without this remote-start feature is shown in Figure 1.

***Fig. 1:*** Top: this old-fashioned laptop doesn’t have a remote-start feature, so someone is going to have to wait several seconds for it to boot. Bottom: thanks to the remote control, the laptop on the bottom is ready to go by the time its owner walks up to it.

Conclusion:

The laptop remote could be a new differentiator between brands in an otherwise commoditized market. When every other laptop is the same, surely consumers will flock to buy the one with the “remote start” option!

PROS: Saves valuable employee time. Additionally, probably several watt-hours per year per laptop, since it encourages people to shut down their laptops. The amount of energy saved probably offsets up to a whole day of increased energy usage due to global population growth.

CONS: It might take longer to locate this remote control than to just turn on the laptop by walking over to it.