PowerCost Monitor TM
by Blue Line Innovations
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Our Price: $119.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $49.95 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of PowerCost Monitor TM
Customer Review: one important point
Summary: 3 Stars
I found the monitor to be relatively straightforward to install and configure, and it works as promised.
This point is mentioned in other reviews, but it bears repeating: The resolution of this device is only 0.1 kW (100 watts). If you want to scrutinize the finer points of your energy use in detail, this will be a problem.
Customer Review: Worked for a few weeks then..
Summary: 2 Stars
the unit began to drop communications.
The unit lived up the positive reviews and worked flawlessly for two weeks but after a week of high humidity in the Dallas area the unit began to work erratically. I did everything changed batteries, and finally brought the unit inside until the weather improved.
The unis was never directly rained on our meter is under the gable just the ambient humidity affected the unit in some way.
I finally was able to get the unit back online but the following day the same happened.
I spent a lot of time with the Level II tech at Blueline. I have no weather stations, no interference of any kind (the unit worked perfectly for two weeks).
I emailed photos of my meter and the meter box to Blueline this went on for a week back and forth with emails from the tech asking for more information I finally decided to get a refund on the unit.
If you do use one of these devices you are hooked it sheds new light as to really how much energy a common house uses.
It does take anywhere from 20-30 seconds to respond to changes in energy use as some have mentioned.
I was having withdrawal symptoms while the unit was down.
I ended up going with TED (The energy Detective 1000 series) this is a simple unit to install and is rock solid in operation with a feature rich information set with a very nice display! The unit displays usage in real time updates are updated within one to two seconds.
I am one happy camper save the batteries go with TED.
Customer Review: Works ok, but beware
Summary: 2 Stars
This was not as good as I was hoping. First, there are several types of meter sizes, and I guess the size of my meter was not supported. I was told by the company that my meter size is only 5% of the population. I was able to work around it by doubling the rate per KWH, but it did not give me a true reading of the electricity that I used.
I also had an issue with the power company. The first time they came, they took it off the meter thinking it was a device to manipulate the meter. After battling for several weeks to get it returned, I just gave up because I did not think the device was all that useful.
Even when It was working, it didn't tell me much. It did not seem very sensitive on the low end of the scale. I tried unplugging all my electronics, but no mater what I did, I could not get the meter to budge any lower than 11 cents an hour. I even tried to unplug pretty much everything except my fridge. The only time I ever saw a change was when I ran something like the microwave or the oven. Even with 3 TVs on, the meter would not change.
It was nice to see how much different appliance can cost, but about 30 minutes of work with a calculator and your appliance owners' manuals can do the same thing. I just don't think it was worth the price, and I would consider myself a gadget person!
Customer Review: Not very useful
Summary: 2 Stars
My electric company was offering a deal on this product, so I was able to pick one up for only $30. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as useful as I had hoped. It attaches to the electric meter, so it only displays the current electric consumption for your entire house. I had expected that I'd be able to go around the house and turn devices on and off and to test how much power they were consuming, but the monitor is slow to detect changes in consumption (5-10 seconds), and the resolution is only to the tenth of the kilowatt, making it nearly useless for comparing similar appliances.
Attaching to the electric meter (digital meter, optical port on the top) was a time consuming and finicky process. Every few days it stopped reading the meter and had to be laboriously loosened and repositioned. Eventually, I was unable to get it to read the meter at all, making the whole thing useless.
In summary, it is an interesting curiosity, but I didn't find it very useful for actually saving electricity. It will tell you how much power you are consuming in your entire house, but it won't help you identify which appliances are actually causing the problem. Not worth the money, especially at full retail.
Customer Review: Limited Value
Summary: 2 Stars
Got this for $10 from my electric company or I would have returned it. Feels like a beta version. I've found it to be very inaccurate. Needs to have a setting to save data between billing dates. This would allow you to easily match against your elecric bill and see how well it works. Doing so manually means having to clear the amounts and save tha data on paper on the same day each month. Of course this means you won't do it.
When the power goes out briefly (thunderstorms etc.) this has to be reset at the meter as it doesn't start up gain when the power comes back on.
I could take this to the moon but the range indicator always shows the strongest signal - so that's useless.
Even when we lose power this always shows a minimum power cost of $0.05 per hour. Shouldn't it be $0.00?
It's not a bad unit who-dinkey but needs improvement and refinement. It's an impressive package of goods when you open the box but unless you get a deal through your utility and like gadgets, save your money.