Remote-Outlet

Monthly Archive: February 2014

Probably the Best Option Right Now

The Kill-a-watt type meters are bulky, and plug into an outlet where they’re really hard to read.

This unit solves both problems: The bulk at the outlet is reduced, although it can still be improved; there’s no reason the bulk needs to be at the outlet at all.

And the display is not only nice and large, easy to read; it is also connected with a wire that allows you certain freedom in where you put the meter. The cable could be longer, but, you know, this is still a fantastic unit, and reasonably priced.

I bought this primarily for my bathroom so I could turn on my speakers and if I forgot to turn them back off, the timer would do that on my behalf. However, I do like to shut it off manually to save energy before the 3 hour wait is done (30 minutes is too short for morning rituals) and it just plain doesn’t work. I can turn it on, but turning it off requires pulling it from the wall. Probably a fluke, but there should be some product consistency.

I originally was going to buy the P3 Kill-A-Watt but thisdevice allows you to plug it into the wall and look at the monitor at a distance with the lengthy wired lead. There are adaptor leads for the P3 but this made more sense.

I would suggest this device for anyone wanting to know how much energy your various devices use.

I think the concept here is spot on. However, I have used routinely “light strips” (power strips) that do the same thing, some of these even with lighted switches, most of these available at various places including hardware stores for comparable prices but having up to 6 outlets which can be handy if there might be some additional item that you need to plug in to the same circuit without of course overloading the circuit. True, even the 3′ corded power strips can be a tad bulky compared to a single switch item like this, so you really have to decide what would work best for you.

One thing I mentioned to Amazon in their “Tell us what we missed” section regarding the description is that I can’t see any mention of the maximum amperage or wattage rating (someone please correct me if I’ve overlooked that piece of information). Given that they describe how this can be used with appliances that are typically high wattage (coffee pots, etc.) I would ASSUME that the amperage is at least 15A, but ideally this should be specified in the information for the product.

February 8, 2014 Outlet, , , 0 Read more >

Good If You are Interested in How Power is Used

Not only will you keep track of the energy you use so that you can keep the electric bill payments down, you can also feel good that you are conserving energy and helping out the environment. It’s a win/win situation. Highly recommended product! It is also a great teaching tool for children about energy consumption. When the switch is off it turns off the power to the mixer which is good. Also, its spaced properly so we can use the below outlet for something else if needed.

It works great. I put in how much our electricity costs and bam I know exactly how much something costs. The averaging feature is what really makes this nice.

There is no way this unit can tell me what my carbon foot print is. Am I using my solar or wind or am I using the power company’s coal or nuke power plant. So, ignore that feature it’s useless.

I like that I get to put in my cost per kwh. I took my power bill and divided by the kwh they said I used and it came out to $0.13kwh (including taxes). I entered .13 and now it is giving me “MY” usage.

I like the long cord between the plug and display unit. Don’t have to bend over to read it. It shows me when I am using power and how much. Plugged my old fridge in for 30 days and it cost me $8.00 a month. Plugged my new BIGGER fridge in and it cost me $3.67 a month. That’s a $51.96 a year savings in power. Therefore, I will turn a profit on the new fridge in 36.5 years.

I’m trying to figure out why my electric bill is so outrageously high.

It’s the dumb things that add up. My cable modem, router, NAS, and notebook is running me $14.50 a month. My remote control and cordless phone is $1.50 a month.

This unit is great if all you want to do is see how much an item is costing you in electricity.

This unit is great for the cord between the plug and the reader.

I took off one star for the look I’m left, I’m Green, I’m care about my carbon foot print stuff that it can’t truly measure.

I would give it 5 for the fact it is inexpensive, works, and does what I need. I use it for my curling iron. Only complaint–the light does not stay on when the power is on. It does turn off at the end of the selected time.

I ordered from amazon but was disappointed because they didn’t come in retail boxes. Just plain boxes and I started to think they were used. They are straight forward to install and setup (did it without looking at instructions). I use them with my cell phone set for 3 hour charge and my razor for a 1/2 charge. They worked as advertised. The big negative is the LED on the top which tells you if it’s on. It’s not clearly lite when on. It can only be seen clearly at night and even then I sometimes have a hard time. Both have the same problem so I it makes me think they are what they are. After using it for a while I’d also like them to have a reset button or a off feature to reset it. Otherwise I have to unplug it. Be nice to have at least two outlets to plug-in my toothbrush too but you can come up with a solution for that too as I did. Overall it works as advertised and the LED just sucks.

February 7, 2014 Outlet, , , 0 Read more >

Knowledge is Power… and Money Saved!

This is why I chose to review the Conserve Insight F7C005q Energy-Use Monitor via the Amazon Vine program. I haven’t used any other type of energy monitor in the past, so I don’t have anything to compare this to in my experience. But what I’m getting from this device is pretty cool… I like it a lot!

In terms of mechanics, it’s extremely easy to use. You plug the three-prong monitor plug into whatever outlet you’ll be using for the device you want to measure. Then you plug the device into the monitor outlet. There’s a display unit attached to the plug via a cord, so you can place it in a position that’s viewable regardless of where the plug might be (like behind a cabinet). That’s it… you’re now able to see what’s going on in terms of energy use.

The display shows CO2 output (per month/year), cost to run device (month/year), and wattage. Once you’ve had the monitor plugged in for awhile, it starts averaging the cost, so if you have something that is turned on and off during regular use (like a TV), you can get a good feel for what your actual energy cost will be to run it based on actual use. The CO2 output doesn’t mean much to me, as I’m not interested in that particular measurement. Wattage is interesting, as it confirms what the device is supposedly using according to the specs. For me, the most important aspect was cost, and it was here that I found the most benefit.

I tried this out on the aforementioned radiator heater to see exactly what this was setting me back to stay warm in my home office. The wattage reported by the display conformed pretty closely to the specs listed by the manufacturer. But the cost aspect was a real eye-opener. If I left the unit on 24/7 at the high power setting, the heater would set me back $144 a month. Wow! Popping it down to the low power setting took it to $40 a month. So now I know that using the heater to take the chill out of the basement is good, but leaving it on past that can get a bit expensive. Knowledge is power… and money saved!

Now that I’ve used my Conserve Insight F7C005q Energy-Use Monitor, I can see myself making a concerted effort to check out stuff that I leave plugged in and turned on for the sake of convenience. Knowing that I can get a real dollar total linked to everything I have plugged in, I think I’ll be much more aware of what I’m using. I might even start turning green! :)

February 6, 2014 Outlet, , , 0 Read more >

Nice Unit to Get Electric Use Info

I find myself trying out a item that I wish was available to me 7 years ago….when I needed to test the output of a whole bunch of electrical items.Back then I had to hire an electrical Engineer to tell me what I was using to dispute a elelctric bill. Now, because of this little unit –you no longer have to go thru the confusion and craziness that I did. All you have to do now is plug it in and read the display…easy as pie to use and understand. Now you can tell when its time for a certain item to go because its drawing too much electricity….or tell when you need to use a certain thing more becasue its so frugal. When you plug this unit in it shows it is using 0 – 0.5 watts . I tested my pencil sharpener…and when I plugged it into the unit there was no change –therefore showing it does not DRAW power until used……….as I began to sharpen my pencil the power use went up steadly to 69.17 watts. You can then press a ” $ ” symbol and it shows you what a years worth of this item will cost you. Co2 imprint as well. Thats the sort of information this unit will give you. Excellent information to figure out your electrical use !

I never really thought about where electricity came from. Do people really think about that? Probably not much, unless you or people you know mine for coal. Nine out of every ten tons of coal goes towards producing electricity. Coal is a finite resource, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. Now that’s food for thought. Now I turn off as many electrical items as I can when I’m not using it or when I shut the house down for the night.

Many appliances that we leave plugged in when not in use are still drawing electrical current, and it does cost money. With this clever product you can do your own science project by finding out how much each item in your house costs you to operate.

I used this monitor on several items but one appliance that sort of scared me was the hair dryer. My hair dryer did not show that any electricity was being used by it being just plugged in but not in use, but when I turned it on, it said it would cost over $60 a year in electricity. Not that anybody ever runs the hair dryer for a year solid, but it is something to be aware of.

This product is easy to use because it has a nice long cord between the information screen and the outlet end. Very handy when what you are monitoring is down at the floor and you don’t want to be crouched down there with it. You can set the rate that your utility company charges you per kWh to get an accurate reading. The instructions that come with the monitor are very concise and easy to read. This is a huge plus, for anybody who has read terrible instructions or ones that are multi-lingual, that are nearly impossible to follow.

The monitor also reads the CO2 that your appliance is emitting by using electricity. The monitor is a very easy to handle shape and doesn’t interfere with other plugs in that might be occupying the outlet, usually.

I gave this to my 9 year old daughter to find out more about conserving electricity. She had a ball, just as I did, plugging appliances in and finding out how much CO2 an appliance puts out, and how much it costs Mommy and Daddy to operate it. I was my daughter’s age in the 70s when we had the energy crisis here in the United States, which was a total drag. We were afraid to use any electricity. But now we have this, and can decide if it’s worth using the appliance, if it’s worth keeping it plugged in or unplugging when not in use. Happy monitoring!

February 5, 2014 Outlet, , , , 0 Read more >

A Neat Idea!

Plugged it to the wall socket with the iphone charger on it. Set it 3 hours and pressed the top button. Poof nothing worked. changed all the time configurations, changed wall sockets, changed load nothing. Refuses to start. The cost of the device is $9.99, I guess it would take me another 5 bucks to return it, ended up wasting my time and money on this. Will never ever buy Belkin products again, its not worth a try. I have to give 1 star for this dead device? Amazon needs to start with -ve or black stars to indicate that this is a useless product.

it work well for that. that said, I have a simple DIY solar electric system I’m setting up and was intending to use this to monitor how much power my system was producing, this meter does not seem to read power flowing in reverse. seem the common meter for the DIY grid tie solar crowd is the Kill A Watt. I’ll have to pick one of those up for my usage.

Plug the end into the outlet, and then plug in whatever device you want to test. That’s all there is to it. Then you will know how much it costs to use your toaster, computer, stereo – anything using electricity. What’s the carbon footprint? – push a button. What is the cost per month? per year? – again, push a button. My boss has been bugging all of us to shut off our power strips on the weekends to save electricity. I found out over one weekend that we save a whopping $.32 a year per strip (And the annual cost of running my computer workstation is around $33 a year. A great gift idea for the techno-nut in your family, or anyone interested in finding ways to save money.

All you do is plug it in the outlet then plug in your appliance. Immediately you can see how much it will cost, monthly or yearly, to keep the appliance plugged in but off. I found this to be a terrific feature. It made me realize it was time to put a few things on a power strip so that I can completely turn them off.

When you turn on the appliance you can then get an idea of what it will cost, monthly or yearly, but only if left on 24/7. Very few electrical items in our home are run 24/7. Even the refrigerator only runs periodically. This feature was only helpful in letting me know how different appliances compare. You can leave it connected for 45 minutes and it gives you an average but I am not sure of what. What do you turn on and off during a 45 minute period? Television, for example, is usually watched in half or full hour increments. Computers are rarely turned on/off in a short period of time. There are some devices that do fluctuate during use but that generally depends on how they are used not necessarily over time. And what is a monthly cost, 30 or 31 days? What would have been useful is a 1 hour cost mode. Then you could quickly calculate your own usage and get a better estimate.

Co2. How many of us have a choice of who or what source we buy our electricity from? Unless you are an activist, the only thing this may do is put the guilt on you and convince you to throw away a device which really creates more pollution.

I do think the most important thing we can do to both save money and help the environment is take concern on the items that are wasting energy plugged in but still using electricity. I found one appliance that cost roughly $5 a month plugged in. For that this device is very useful and could very well pay for itself.

February 4, 2014 Outlet, , , , 0 Read more >