P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
by P3 INTERNATIONAL
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List Price: Our Price: $14.99 You Save: $15.00 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
Customer Review: I LOVE This Gadget, Great for Monitoring Energy Usage
Summary: 5 Stars
There were two primary reasons that I purchased the Kill-A-Watt: 1) to measure the [questionable] energy savings performance of the Power Planner by Energy Smart (see review) 2) to disprove the stated 2900 Watts on my Bellissima Ionic Volcano Hair Dryer (see review). Tertiary reasons included a general interest in energy savings. As it turns out, the Kill-A-Watt demonstrated that both aforementioned devices did not live up to stated manufacturer claims.
The Kill-A-Watt plugs into any typical grounded three-prong receptacle. It also has a receptacle so it acts as a splice, presumably measuring voltage and current to determine power in watts (ohm's law V=IR, Power=VI). In addition to measuring power, voltage and current in real-time, it can also measure kilowatt hours (kwh), via an imbedded timer. This unit, kwh, is the measure by which your electric utility company bills you.
In general, the Kill-A-Watt is extremely easy to use. There is a large LCD display indicating the value of interest. The digital readout and buttons make it extremely easy to navigate through the various functions.
Particularly interesting is observing the difference between the stated wattages and realized wattages of various consumer devices. It is also interesting to watch the energy creep caused by thermal factors (in p=ir^2). FYI, for typical resistive elements "R" goes up as temperature increases.
As you can see, the Kill-A-Watt allowed me to disprove various manufacturer claims.
Measured Wattages:
Belissma 2900 Watt Hair Dryer
Ionic Hair Dryer (aka Volcano) ...1525 Watts
ConAir
Hair Made
Andis ProStyle
Other Consumer Devices:
Heated Towel Warmer (stated 100 watts)....... 131
Lights:
Sunbox Sunray Full Spectrum Lightbox (stated 120 watts)....123 watts
Lights of America Fluorex Outdoor Lamp (stated 65 watts).....65 watts
Lightwitz 30 watt light bulb..... 30 watts
Lights of America 200 Watt Equivalent Compact Fluorescent (stated 42 watts)....45 Watts
It is important to note that the Power Planner by EnergySmart was intended to save money on devices with older electric motors. In my review of the Power Planner, I outlined the test results using the device on my parents 40+ year old secondary refrigerator. Sadly, the Kill-A-Watt showed that there was no realized difference using the Power Planner over multiple 24 hour periods.
If you have any interest in energy conservation/savings or are questioning manufacturer claims, I would highly recommend that you purchase the Kill-A-Watt. It is great for measuring instantaneous power, current and voltage, but also power consumption over a period of time.
Customer Review: Nice Gadget
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this expecting to find energy vampires all over my home, and to help decide whether I needed to get a smart strip or not.
I just spent about 3 hours going through my home reading the watts. Nothing really stood out, other than my Dish Network receiver that costs me 2.22 a month in electricity to use whether I am watching TV or not. Everything else in my entertainment center uses a combined 11 watts when not being used (Xbox, WDTV, TV, DVD player) costing me $7.71 a year, it would take me 3 years for a smart strip to pay for itself.
I found that my Nintendo Wii uses 13 watts in "standby mode". Standby mode is what allows Nintendo to send updates to your wii without it being "on". This costs me $9.11 a year, or .76 a month. If the power light on your wii is orange when you turn it off you are using standby mode, if it is red you are not. Note that if you are using a remote charger you need standby mode on to keep your wiimotes charged.
I found some good surprises too. The power strip that feeds my PC/Cable Modem/Router/Monitor only read 37 watts when the PC is in standby mode. We use this PC as a file server, so the hard drive never "sleeps". All of these devices combined uses less energy than that Dish Network receiver. My xbox only draws 2 watts when turned off, I thought it would be more. I'm very surprised that the Wii ended up using more than the xbox.
This will really open your eyes to your bad habits, like leaving the TV on when you are not watching it. My entertainment center uses 200 watts when the TV is on.
None of my phone chargers showed any watts when not being used. Neither did the hair dryer, toaster, etc. My 20 year old Microwave drew 5 watts to display a clock, while my auto setting alarm clock with a huge display only drew 3 watts. It just shows how much more energy efficient things are today than they were 20 years ago. I think products like the Kill A Watt that allows consumers to see how efficient devices are helps motivate companies to manufacture efficient systems.
Even though it was educating to see how much energy my devices use, in my opinion the Kill A Watt is not a must have gadget. See if you can borrow one from a friend, because after you get done playing with it for a few hours there is really nothing else to do with it. Mine will probably sit in my closet until a friend/relative needs to use it.
Customer Review: Poor form factor, no backlighting - otherwise does what it should
Summary: 4 Stars
Like most of the other reviewers, I got it because I was interested in knowing how much power my applicances were using, in real life. Most of them will tell you the AC voltage, frequency and power requirements when turned on (look for a label on the back if metal or for the information to be molded into the plastic), but in real life, appliances are turned on and off all the time, either manually (by the user) or automatically (by themselves). For example, in a modern fridge, the compressor will turn on and off throughout the day. It will cycle on/off more frequently in warm weather, and when the door is open. My fridge uses about 650 watts when the compressor is on, and only 30 when it's off. Clearly, you can't just pick one or the other, so you have to average over a time period.
In order to accurately measure true usage, in daily life, you need one of these. You just plug the applicance into it, plug the meter into the wall, and come back in a day (or week), to get a better picture of what's really gobbling power in your house.
My only gripes are:
1. as others have pointed out, it is big, and you can't plug anything else into a duplex outlet with it. (It's also got a ground plug, so you can't plug it directly into an older-style two-prong outlet, but grounding is a good thing, so I can't complain.)
2. although it powers itself by tapping off a little power from the outlet, I think it would have been very convenient if it included a little backlighting (of course, in order not to draw too much power, and mess up the readings it's taking, it should only come on when you press a button, then go out again five seconds later). Outlets are generally close to the floor, frequently behind furniture, and generally out of the way. Once you unplug the meter, the information is lost, so I often found myself on my hands and knees, shining a flashlight at it from an oblique angle (so as not to shine right through the LCD display). Seems like an obvious enhancement that would really make a difference.
3. It would be useful if it could handle 240volts, for electric dryers, but that's a minor point, since the dryer is on when it's on, and off when it's not, so it's completely different from a fridge.
All in all, a useful product, though I think once you've done an initial survey of your house, you won't use it again until you get a new appliance.
Customer Review: You need this.
Summary: 5 Stars
Love it!! Awesome simple little device. Opens your eyes to many things we take for granted. Electric bill was way too high and kept getting higher. Called electric company and told them to do actual reading not estimated usage. Still was high. Got this device and began connecting everything to it and was shocked. So many things that we think is off is constantly drawing power. With this device and now using better energy habits, like putting things on power strips with on/off switches, helped reduce Kwh down 50%. Cable box uses 13W while off. Same with my audio system. Just displaying the clock on the audio system while off was using bloody 22W!!
Using the specs on the back of most items just lists the max input values but really they don't use it all. My cable modem which I thought was 60W (Label said 0.5A at 120V) was really using 3W.
I even switched all my appliances to different switches on my house and turned off extra switches not really being used. I have 6 switches and currently just using 3 now. Sad thing is I found that one switch has like 80% of all electrical power. Really bad installation IMO. Lucky all appliances just use 9A on this 15A switch.
I was originally planning on building one of these devices myself since I found plans with all the specs to build one. But in reality, you need to buy all the parts mostly in bulk so it will come out more than if you have all the parts lying around. I was even considering making a real dangerous and cheap one buy splicing a power cord, attaching a resistor and connecting it to my multimeter, but for $23 was worth not putting my life and my components at risk. About the design yes really dumb if you connect it directly to the wall. USE A POWER CABLE for that. Like those AC power cables should be fine.
Some findings-
Switch light bulbs from incandescent to fluorescent: 535W down to 143W
Computer and Monitor will be shutoff at power strip when not used. Saving 5W
Keep Printer, USB Hub, HDD enclosure, Wireless AP on separate power strip and only turn on when needed. Saving 9W
I even made an Excel sheets with all values, made charts and mapped switches in the house. If you love playing with numbers this is gonna be addicting.
Customer Review: Great Fun for Obessive Compulsive People
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are a "Miser," this device will be your best friend. I bought the "Kill-A-Watt" because I suspected that our old Fridge was shooting up the electric bill. I plugged the Fridge into the meter and left it for 3 days. I was very surprised to find out the the fridge was only burning about 1.5 KWH (Kilowatt Hours) per day, which is about what it should.
Now I am going around the house and plugging other appliances in for a couple days. The real shocker was that my "economical" eMachines PC along with a CRT monitor was using more energy than the fridge! The computer was burning almost 2 KWH per day. I made changes to the energy saver software in Windows, so that the monitor automatically shuts off in 10 minutes and the computer hibernates in 1 hour. This has brought the daily consumption down to 1 KWH.
For those of you who don't understand KWH, its a measurement of electric usage by the power company. To be simple, using a KWH is about .08¢ in our area. So, if you save 1 KWH per day, you save .08¢ After a month's time, it's about $2.48. After a year it's about $30 bucks. The savings add up over time.
With the Kill-A-Watt, I've found out lots of interesting things:
My Mac Mini with a LCD monitor uses about 1/2 the power of my eMachines Tower with CRT. That's 70 Watts vs. 140 Watts.
My Electric Blanket which I though was "economical" pulls 120 Watts during operation. It actually uses 1 KWH per day. I even found out that the blanket burns 10 Watts when the power switch is off!
I found many "power bandits" in my home. These are devices like cellphones, scanners, routers, modems that have those little black power blocks. Most of these devices use 5 to 10 watts with the power switch off. With the Kill-A-Watt, I was able to find the biggest offenders and plug them into a timer that shuts off each night when they are not in use.
If you are truly obsessive about your electrical bill like me, you can make a nice Excel spreadsheet with all your appliances. You can enter Watts, Kilowatt Hours, Price per hour and than figure if replacing a device would pay for the purchase and how long it will take.
As everyone says in their reviews, "This device will pay for it's self."