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: Geek out and save $!!! A few tips to get maximum value...
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've read the other reviews you know by now that this measures power consumption so you know how much it costs to keep lights on, etc. How much does it really cost me to leave my computer on 24/7?
A fine tip Sharpie and some masking tape can dramatically increase the effectiveness of the information you get. I find you quickly forget what things cost to leave on...
1) Write your local electricity cost directly on the Kill-A-Watt (or on tape). This is because each time you unplug it to move it around, it forgets.
2) Write the power consumption and cost on your devices. I use a piece of masking tape on the underside of things. Also useful to know power consumption at various settings (for example, a fan)
3) It's more useful to think of how much it costs each month if you leave something on 24/7 than to think of a "per hour" cost. We pay 10.5 cents per KWH so a 100 watt light costs $7.56 a month / 25 cents a day or 1.05 cents per hour doesn't have the same impact.
4) If there are lights that get left on frequently, write the consumption / cost on a sticky note next to the switch (based on the light you have there)
5) If you want to get really geeked out, test your CFL's separately. It might say 23 watts on it, but I've found them to actually vary quite a bit. Some used as little as 18 watts (Maybe they were very old?) to as much as 26.
6) For really low consumption devices (cell phone chargers on standby for example) it isn't really accurate. If you insist on getting a reading, you will have to leave it in for 24 hours and have it log the total since they tend to be below the accurate instant display limit. Also note that power consumption changes under load - a stand mixer or blender for example.
Finally I'd say that this is something every library should have - since it's not something you necessarily need at hand all the time. After a few days of measuring everything in your house it's likely to sit on your shelf for months and months at a time.
One pet peeve is that the display is hard to read. Would a backlight be too much to ask?
If you have a question or found this review helpful, please let me know!
Customer Review: Kill A Watt meter, the good and the bad
Summary: 5 Stars
I made my own electricity usage monitoring system a few years ago and have used it many times to determine my usage.
I have most of the significant findings recorded in a notebook, things like how much energy my CD players use, both when playing music and when "off." How much energy my desktop computer uses, on, off, when my monitor is on, off, when the system is idle, etc.
I really have figured it all out at this point, but my system is more of a hassle to use than the P3 Kill-a-Watt, and that's the reason I'm buying it. My system is made from a multimeter and an extension cord, one wire of which branches off to a couple of banana plugs, which plug into the multimeter. I multiply my current flow by the voltage (120) to get watts used.
Of course, I've saved a lot of money by determining energy usage around my house. Measuring it takes out the guesswork. For the most part, I only have things draw energy when there's a good reason, for instance the wall warts on my cordless phones and my answering machine are on 24/7. I switch off many of my wall warts with toggled power strips, however. Those things add up. I use a power strip to totally turn off power to my computer, reducing usage to zero. My gas + electricity for my entire 1900+ foot house averages under $60/month!
Caveats:
1. If my experience is any guide, don't leave something plugged into this for an extended period of time. I had my computer system plugged into a power strip which was plugged into this for quite a while, probably around 6-8 months. Suddenly, the unit had no readings. It passed power but refused to do anything else. The instructions say to discontinue power in that event, but this was no help. I thought it was dead. Then after a few days it came back to life. I think the moral is to use it, but then put it aside, don't leave power running through it indefinitely. The warranty is only something like 6 months!
2. At low wattages my Kill A Watt doesn't provide useful information. Wall warts using ~3 watts show as zero. For those I have to use my homemade system described above, which is a very accurate system but more cumbersome to use than the Kill A Watt meter.
Customer Review: Not as good as I would have hoped
Summary: 3 Stars
If you are getting the kill a watt device, typically you know why. In my case, it was in order to try to save money by determining how much wattage I use. Once in a blue moon it has come into use. For example, I used two air conditioners in my last apartment. One of them was energy star and the other one was just run of the mill. I always used the energy star one, and then thought i might be able to save money by running the other one at night in my room, and leaving the living room (energy star) one off. However, I checked the wattage to find that the nonenergy star air conditioner used almost 5 X the energy of the energy star. By shutting it off and not using it, I ended up saving a lot of money I would have wasted.
However, the device performs below my expectations in the sense that it can't pick up low wattage items. If you want to check the wattage of a night light, don't bother. I wanted to know the wattage of my electronics while on standby mode, and it can't detect that either. It also can't detect the power of charging a device such as a remote or cellphone. It can't even detect a 9 watt (40 watt equivalent energy star lightbulb). In fact, It can't detect much under 30 watts of usage. Do you know how many devices use under 30 watts? With this day and age, and everything going energy star, the only things this could tell you would be the things that are large power guzzlers you probably can't do much about anyway.
Although this does not factor much into the lower rating, I also wanted to mention the inconvenience of reading it. Do you really think about where your items are plugged in? No? Probably because they are in an out of reach area. Without a backlight and wide viewing angle, it is very inconvenient to read the kill a watt once it is plugged in. Most of the time, I need to pull whatever device I want to check out into the middle of the room, plug it into one of my open outlets that actually have light and room to look at it strait on, and then read it that way. It is inconvenient, a small backlight would have made this process a lot less painful, since lighting is the problem 50% of the time. But like I said, my biggest beef is it's limited usage.
Customer Review: Neat Device - Could be better
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a pretty neat device that measures how many watts a device is using and keeps a total of kilowatt hours used over time (critical for things that use power in bursts like a refrigerator). I used it to measure how much power my HDTV receiver was using while it was turned off (15 watts!) and calculated that by using a remote control surge protector and unplugging the HD receiver when not in use, I can pay for the surge protector in 3 years. I was happy to learn that the standby power of my DVD player and home theater receiver were minimal. My old VCR uses a couple of watts just sitting there. I figured out that it costs me 2 cents to brew one cup of coffee.
So this is a great thing that will keep you entertained for a couple of days and give you some good information. Then you should lend it out to everyone you know! Let everyone audit their own energy use. Every library or fire station should have these to lend out to people. Okay, off my soapbox now.
The device itself needs some improvements. I know this is the low-end model and I appreciate that it is fairly inexpensive. But there is no reason in the world for this thing to block both plugs in a standard outlet. Yes, you can get an extension cord, but the design should be better. I was a little annoyed that it has three prongs, but I admit they probably don't have a choice since some devices that you plug in to it will need a ground. Second, just plugged in to the wall, the Kill a Watt reads 3 watts. While that is great to know, it totally messes up all the readings. My VCR on standby reads 5, but 3 of that is the Kill a Watt. Why do I want to know that? It should not be counting itself and I imagine that it also includes its own power usage in the kilowatt-hour running total. Memory and backlighting would be fine additions, but I don't really want to pay extra for them.
So I think it can be useful for tracking down energy vampires (my laptop uses one sixth as much power as my desktop computer; I don't think I'll buy another desktop). It would be best if you can find somebody and borrow this from them, but if not this is a good purchase.
Customer Review: I had fun measuring nearly every pluggable electrical device in the house.
Summary: 5 Stars
In standard style, Amazon shows how much we save on the purchase price. For the Kill-a-Watt meter, that is only the beginning. Since there should be some benefit derived from consuming electricity, this meter is great at identifying those hidden electric power wasters. Note: This is not an energy saving device. It is a portable meter that identifies areas to reduce hidden electrical energy consumption and save money.
Keep in mind that return on investment (ROI) should drive what to install or replace to reduce consumption of electricity. The question to ask is: What is the expected payback time from reduced electricity consumption to recover the cost of this energy-saving investment? The shorter the time, the better. For me, less than a year is desired. I don't want to wait twenty years to break even.
I had fun measuring nearly every pluggable electrical device in the house. I am impressed with the simplicity of using the Kill-a-Watt meter.
The Kill-a-Watt meter fits in the palm of my hand. There is a three-prong plug on the back and a three-prong socket on the front. The unit turns on when plugged in and displays the AC line voltage. Although the functions for each button are described in the product features, only two buttons are important in finding hidden electric power wasters. Pressing the second button displays AC line current to two decimal places. Pressing the third button displays power in watts.
When it comes to saving on the cost of electricity, go after the biggies first: Installing a set-back thermostat, quality weather stripping, thermal-insulating entrance doors, and ceiling fans. Replace old poor energy performance units with higher SEER versions. Install timers to take advantage of time-of-day usage.
Then, find those hidden electric power wasters. That is where the Kill-a-Watt meter helps a lot. I found about 2.3 kWh wasted per day. At ten cents per kWh, that works out to approximately $84 annually. Some of the solutions had an instant ROI: unplug. Some will require an ROI evaluation of possible solutions.