P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor
by P3 INTERNATIONAL
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List Price: Our Price: $22.41 You Save: $37.54 (63%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $18.00 (click here) Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor
Customer Review: Great For Home Theater Total Cost of Ownership
Summary: 4 Stars
It works as advertised, gives you an easy and accurate answer to that nagging question "how much does this black box that is on all the time really cost me," it is relatively straightforward to use (it could use some user interface tweaks, but it's a power monitor, how much can I expect?).
What I wanted to know specifically was my home media gears total cost of ownership--specifically my TiVo. I wanted to know what the device was costing me beyond the normal monthly expense. I was able to calculate out that my TiVo Series 3, with a Seagate FreeAgent 1TB external hard drive and the factory standard internal hard drive, costs $27.12 a year, while recording two programs and watching a third (based on 9.19 cents per kWh). Very slick indeed. What was even more surprising is that the Motorola cable box with On-demand cost twice as much to run a year with less functionally.
I am not the KillAWattEZ will ever "pay for itself" in energy savings, but gathering the data to figure out the total cost of ownership of a given household appliance without this device would have been nearly impossible.
Customer Review: P4460 Kill-A-Watt Monitor
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are interested in determining the efficiency of any plug-in 110v device operating below 15 amps, I highly recommend this monitor. One can get an immediate readout of volts, amps, VA, power factor, and watts being consumed. To get a reading over time with devices that use standby power when not in use (e.g., devices with remote controls) or devices with thermostats that turn on intermittently (e.g., refrigerators) one can leave the monitor plugged in for a day or more to get a reading of total KWH consumed and the total time, so that KWH consumption per month, year, etc. can be calculated. By entering your cost per KWH the monitor will give a direct reading in cost for the time plugged-in or per day, week, month, year. The monitor may be unplugged and plugged in elsewhere for a more convenient reading, since the data are retained in memory. Pressing the reset button starts over. It is helpful to plug the monitor into a power strip with a 4 to 6 ft cord for taking readings from places where plugging the monitor directly into the wall outlet is not convenient.
Customer Review: Meter works well as advertised
Summary: 5 Stars
This meter does just what it says - measures volts, amps, watts, RMS. I haven't even used the electricity cost function, because all I care about is the watt reading. It lets you find out which items suck up a lot of power on standby, on & idle, or at full power.
One picture above shows a short cord. This is not included, and unless you already have a short extension cord to use with it, get one (or a five-pack) of these.
Using this meter will show some surprises in who is using how much power. Standby monitors as power hogs? My 21" Viewsonic CRT (old-school) on standby uses 0.8 watt. Printers sucking up power because they're always on? My HP color bubblejet uses 7 watts on and idle. Console power usage? My XBox360 Elite uses 90 watts when on & idle in the dashboard, but 100 watts when on full crank during a game (Transformers War for Cybertron). Much smaller difference than expected. On the other hand, an external hard drive with a physical power switch "off" drew 2 watts! My HP 17" notebook draws 80 watts when off and charging!
Customer Review: "Built-in battery backup" misleading
Summary: 3 Stars
Pros:
1. Retains data when unplugged from wall. Improvement over P4400.
2. Built-in calulator. Improvement over P4400.
Cons:
1. Blocks both plugs of the wall outlet so you only can plug into
the Kill-A-Watt EZ device. It should have been designed to block only 1 plug or should have included a cord.
2."Built-in Battery Backup" in manufacturer description misleading. The previous model, P4400, loses all data as soon as it is unplugged from the wall. This model, P4460, does retain the information after it is unplugged BUT it must be plugged in to read the data. I thought it had a 9V or AA batteries inside to use it without being plugged in.
Conclusion: It is an improvement over the P4400, but I was misled by the "Built-in Battery Backup" description. It probably uses a solid state non-volatile memory to retain the information anyway because I didn't see a battery inside. I am not sure I would have paid the extra $20 for the newer version with what I know now. Maybe $10 more would be OK.
Customer Review: This product is really great!
Summary: 5 Stars
This power monitor is really great. I bought a few of them and gave the others as gifts. I think it's worth the extra money for this model to be able to enter your cost from your electric bill and have the unit read out the cost per hour, day, week, month or year! One review complained about it being hard to read when plugged into the wall. Just use it with a short extension cord if the outlet for your refrigerator is behind it. Make sure the extension cord is the proper gauge, 14 gauge for a 15 amp circuit. This thing is so easy to use, you may not even need to read the directions! When you have collected enough data to get the proper accuracy, you can unplug it from the product and plug it in somewhere else to read the data. It doesn't loose the data, just read it out right away so it doesn't count any no energy use time and average it in with your previously collected data. When you are done and reset the unit to start monitoring another product, it clears the data but leaves the cost per kilowatt hour that you entered from you utility bill.