Smart Strip SCG3 Energy Saving Power Strip with Autoswitching Technology
by Smart Strip
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Smart Strip SCG3 Energy Saving Power Strip with Autoswitching Technology
Customer Review: A REAL Simple Energy Saving Tool
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want something to help you save a few buck on your energy bill while also prolonging the life of Equipment, this is the tool for you.
I had an idea what this SmartStrip could do but i really wanted to see it for myself. This guy is as simple as it sounds and just as convient.
You have 1 outlet that you plug your switching device in. The switching device is the device that when you turn on or off turns everything else on or off. You also have 2 Always ON outlets (for DVR boxes or Broadband Modem, etc). And 4 "Controlled" outlets, 1 of which is an extra wide one. Now, the 1 outlet for the switching device is an Always ON outlet.
There is a little knob on the side for helping you tweek the switching setting that power off everything else when you put the main device into a low power state or off. Because some things draw power even when turned off so you may need to tweek it.
I bought this to try it out at work. If you want something to definitely help at home or at the office, this is perfect. At work, i had my Laptop at the switching port. I plugged the Monitor, the Speakers, the Desk Lamp, my cell chargers, any and all accessories into the controlled ports. I tweeked the knob on the side so that when I put my laptop into Standby, that it will also shut off everything else as well. To tweek it, you must put the computer into Standby mode and adjusted the knob until all the devices turn off.
This is great because the moment i shutdown the computer at night, it turns everything off and i don't have to forget about turning anything off. All that littles of electricity its saving is great.
You could easily use it at home. You can have it setup where your TV is the switch, your DVR is in the Always ON, your DVD, VCR, Game Consoles, Stereo, Home Theater, etc are all plugged into the Controlled Ports, So that the moment you turn the TV off, everything else turns off. No more nagging the kids to make sure they turned everything else, no need to round through remotes to make sure everything else is off.
The price is right as well, you are going to pay about the same price for something that also does about the same amount of Surge Protection, so why not get something that will save you in long running cost as well. It could pay for itself in the first year alone.
Customer Review: This device works as advertised only if you use it appropriately
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a review of the Smart Strip SCG3 / 049418906 Energy Saving Power Strip with Autoswitching Technology product offered by Amazon.com.
This product when plugged in with no load, uses virtually no power. In my home it is controlled by my TV set. The devices which power on and off (the controlled devices) include an Xbox 360 (Elite), PS3 (60 GB), a Wii and an 8 port Ethernet switch.
Using a Kill A Watt, my power savings vs not having this switch are about $2-$3 per month, depending on how long the set is on for. The longer the set is on (that my kids play) the less is saved. My electric rate per KWH is about 18 cents.
This device will pay for itself in 10-15 months using my configuration.
To know how long it will take to pay for itself in your home, you'll need a Kill A Watt or similar product, and will need to measure the power off energy consumption of the devices which will be turned off by this product.
In my opinion any product which pays for itself in under 2 years is a reasonable purchase.
If I had fewer devices controlled, or if they were different devices, the only way to tell if this would save enough energy to justify the cost is by using a Kill A Watt or similar device.
My suggestion is to take the $30 you'd spend on this, and purchase a Kill A Watt first, then you'll know the energy consumption of the appliances which this device will fully power down. You need to measure them in the off state to determine if this energy strip is viable for your situation.
I personally prefer the Kill A Watt 4460 as you can enter your energy cost, and it will tell your what an appliance costs to use per day, week, month or year.
Purchasing this strip without a measurement of energy use from the controlled devices, is making a guess, maybe an educated guess, about power savings.
Our devices are controlled by a 47" LCD TV, and no adjusting of sensitivity was required. My guess is any large appliance can control all smaller appliances on a circuit.
This appears to be a reasonable product to use when controlling devices linked to a TV or home Computer. It may have difficulty with some energy efficient laptops.
Customer Review: Hard to adjust; Didn't work in a simple setup.
Summary: 2 Stars
A smart power strip is a great idea. I'm going around my house finding things that consume power when they're not in use, and making sure they're off when they're supposed to be off.
This smart power strip is supposed to be just the right thing, and if you can get it adjusted properly, it will work as advertised. But I had a lot of trouble with it. I first tried it with my TV setup, to turn off the amplifying antenna, digital converter box, Roku box, and TV when I'm not using the TV. I did this by plugging a lamp into the control socket. It was a low-power CFL lamp, using about 12 watts when on (and of course, zero when off), and I was unable to make the Smart Strip go on and off reliably. I tried two different bulbs with different power consumptions. After a dozen attempts to adjust the screw setting, I gave up.
In the end, I used a standard power strip to turn that TV stuff on and off, but it's less convenient than using the Smart Strip would have been.
But I persisted. I connected my PC to the Smart Strip unit, so it could turn off the LCDs and speakers when the computer was hibernating. After much tweaking and frustration, I was able to find a setting that worked for this very standard Dell computer. But it wasn't easy, and I was angry by the time it worked, and not confident that it would continue to work. I returned the unit to Amazon.
Instead, I bought an APC Power-Saving Essential Surgearrest power strip Apc Power-saving Essential Surgearrest 7 Outlet with tel 120V for about the same price. It worked on the PC the first time. It has no adjustments at all. No frustration and a big smile. I recommend the APC unit instead of this one.
One note: APC advises that anything taking more than about 15 watts when in the low-power state (sleep or hibernate) won't trigger their unit to shut off. This is a better arrangement, and caused no problems for me.
Customer Review: Not-so-smart power strip
Summary: 4 Stars
Although smarter than the average power strip, this device has only limited intelligence. The instruction manual, page 5, states "The Smart Strip will work with the following equipment: * All home entertainment equipment ... ". Not exactly. The adjustable switching threshold doesn't work with devices having small differences between the "on" and "standby" states. This includes lots of my home entertainment equipment. My application is a Logitech Squeezebox receiver as control device, and a ZERO class D amplifier as switched device. The Logitech receiver doesn't effectively switch the power strip, no matter how finely I tune the threshold adjusting switch. Neither will my Pioneer receiver trigger the switch. A lamp works - but not practical.
Switching devices triggered by audio signals are built into some self-powered speakers and amplifiers, and I do have these deployed elsewhere. But finding a standalone switching device for my ZERO amp is not that easy, although there are schematics freely available on the web if you're a DIY type.
Another option was to leave the amp on 24/7, since it is low power. But, there are sufficient electromagnetic fields present to generate noise in the speakers.
Well, the 60's style toggle switch on the amp does work well.
Customer Review: Nice product, but beware with amps
Summary: 4 Stars
There has bee a recent trend in eliminating switched power outlets on most current stereo receivers, for reasons I don't understand.
I have a CD player that has a push-button type power switch. I used to plug it into the switched receiver outlet so that it came on and off with my stereo receiver. Since most newer receivers don't have these outlets, I decided to use one of these to power my CD player on and off with my receiver as the triggering device. That works well and I'm happy with it.
I was also hoping to use this power strip to turn my subwoofer on and off, rather than putting my subwoofer in the 'auto' mode, to save a little power. It worked ok and would power the sub on and off but I ended up not using it for the sub. There was a loud 'thump' from the subwoofer some of the time when the power strip turned on. This is common with amplifiers when the power comes on abruptly. So, I don't recommend using this to switch any kind of amplifier on/off as it could damage your speaker (subwoofer) long term. This is not really a defect in this power strip. The way to avoid this is use some power source that ramps up slower (like a power conditioner, but they can be costly).
The default setting on the power strip worked with my device too.