AKICOLJ - real-time leccy meter thingies

[brixtonbrood]

I'm thinking of getting those electricity metery gadgets for green-minded parents and/or sibling. Does anyone have them? (actually that's rhetorical because I know at least two of you do). Do they work well, are they useful and user friendly? Recommended models? I'm looking for something at the cheap and basic end of the spectrum.

Comments

[jinty]

I haven't got one meself but my work colleague M has - I'll ask him.

[rufusfrog.livejournal.com]

We've got one but I haven't played with it very much, I'm sure Zengineer will be along in a bit to comment.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

Indeed. They are easy to fit - you just clamp a loop around the main feed into the circuit breaker box. Cheap ones are just as good as expensive ones because as I use it you go around the house switching things off and saying things like "doesn't the sub woofer use a lot of power even when you aren't listening to anything" or "these things don't use any power in standby". You then decide what to switch off or put in standby depending on real information. I think it reduced our baseline load by about 40% but led to very little change in peak load.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

It struck me that apart from for lights it would be more useful to have one you could plug into any given socket and therefore work out how much power that device was taking rather than having to turn things off and on and infer this.
The only thing that surprised me was that our dishwasher (in economy mode) essentially uses no power. Well, that is to say completely trivial amounts compared to the other white goods.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

you could plug into any given socket

Or just hook around the mains lead of that device.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Ah, good point, but if the device were designed for that it might be a bit more ergonomic for the task.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

You only hook them around one wire rather than the whole cable.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah, righto.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

They do make socket monitors though of course you still have to unplug the device to plug the socket monitor into the socket and the device into the socket monitor.
Surprising info on the dishwasher. Normally they heat the water they use and also the drying cycle uses a lot of heat. The sloshing and rinsing cycles don't use much power. I suppose economy mode avoids heating water or drying hence the saving (providing it does clean the dishes).

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

It cleans things (slowly).