Dec
31
Home Energy PowerCost Monitor
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- See real-time electricity bills: how much is your energy consumption costing at that moment?
- See the effect of turning appliances off around the house, find out how much you’re saving
- See the total amount of electricity you’re using
Product Description
As unobtrusive as a small electric clock, the PowerCost Monitor is a powerful real-time direct feedback display device that measures home electricity usage. It tells at a glance, in real-time, how much electricity your home is using in dollars and cents and in kW. Domestic energy usage studies have demonstrated that real-time feedback yields energy savings anywhere between 10 and 20 percent. The savings at the high end of this range are realized when a tabletop ener… More >>
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5 Comments
December 31st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I was skeptical but bought it anyway. Installation CD was helpful. I was more interested in total consumption, so I’m pleased with the level of detail I get.
Rating: 5 / 5
December 31st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
This meter provides a way to read what your electric meter is reading, day by day or hour by hour. It provides for detailed entry of the intricacies of your billing scheme, including different rates for different times and over-amounts used. You can turn on your electric stove, air conditioning, any large consumption electrical appliance and see not only how much current it’s drawing, but how much it’s costing you to run per hour according to your billing rates.
Only 2 shortcomings: It takes 30 to 90 seconds to register a change in consumption, so by the time you’re checking consumption of central air, a refrigerator may have cycled on to distort the readings. And secondly, the consumption wattage is in chunks of 100 watts, so you can’t note minor change in usage.
But otherwise, the PowerCost is an intriguing instrument for a fair price.
–Mike
Rating: 4 / 5
December 31st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I think this would be a good product for some people. Here in Maine we have a strange Schlumberger electric meter which makes it very hard to get the sender to work. We got good advice from the manufacturer, but it just wouldn’t work with our meter. You probably would have better luck. Our meter has a plate blocking the area where the spinning disk could easily be read.
On the plus side, our money was returned cheerfully.
Rating: 3 / 5
December 31st, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Like the title says, it’s nice, but very hard to use… did not transmit well, and stopped working often…
Rating: 2 / 5
December 31st, 2009 at 11:25 pm
This low cost device gives a way to track the electric use at home. With the HIGH cost today it is a great way to reduce the overall electric bill. The setup is a bit complex. I was able to setup this unit in a few steps.
Rating: 5 / 5