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: great idea, but so-so product
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought the monitor to learn more about my electricity usage. It's easy to install but two major flaws led me to return it.
First, the data it delivers is too inaccurate to measure power. The display only shows 1/10th of a kW (i.e., 100W) but the underlying accuracy seems even worse (maybe 200-300W). Also, the measurements are not real-time--it may take a minute or more for the display to update after a change in use.
Second, the display unit needs to be in close proximity to the meter to work. I often had no reception inside the house unless the unit was within a few yards of the meter (which is outside the house).
The monitor also has no memory, so it's not possible to see your usage over the day. It would be nice to be able to read this out via a USB port.
Customer Review: Well designed, but hard to setup and get to work.
Summary: 2 Stars
Like the title says, it's nice, but very hard to use... did not transmit well, and stopped working often...Customer Review: Promising design but falls short on implementation
Summary: 1 Stars
I got one of these units for Christmas and hooked it up and used it for a couple of months. The unit is excellent for evaluating the cumulative and individual usage of devices around the home as well as trending and seeing the impact of various energy saving techniques such as replacing incandescent with CFLs, validating when someone has left a room without turning off the lights, turning off your computers at night and so on.
The base station takes 15-30 seconds to update a change in electrical consumption. This may be due to my use on my mechanical electrical box with the rotating metal wheel. Because in my install it counts the rotations of the wheel in the meter, it must monitor an entire rotation to note a change in speed, and thus the change in electrical consumption. This might be quicker on the newer electronic meters.
The unit does not automatically reset statistics at the start of a new month, which means you must do it manually if you want accurate month long statistics by staying up until Midnight on the last day of the month. If you do not do the resets the unit will continue accumulating statistics indefinitely, which makes it difficult to correlate the unit's information to your electrical bills.
As others have noted, the communication to the unit is heavily dictated by the use of other wireless devices in your home. I have two other outdoor temprature sensors that run on the same frequency and this would produce situations where the unit would occasionally drop connection to the outdoor sensor. The only way to work around it is to move the base station closer to the outdoor sensor or move the the other wireless devices away from the area.
The other drawback about losing the connection to the outside unit is that the statistics stop accumulating, so if the sensor falls out of range overnight, its possible to lose hours of data and the month's statistics are essentially useless as they will be incomplete.
This means that at best the unit is helpful in point in time assessments of energy consumption and has limited usefulness in trending usage over periods longer than say a week or more.
The outdoor sensor has a very light silicon seal around the battery door designed to keep moisture out of the unit. The problem is the wire for the eye that monitors the rotation wheel passes through a rubber part that is at the top of the compartment at the location where the silicon gasket rests against the housing. The net result of this design is that it provides a location for water to enter the battery compartment which also contains an electric circuit board, and since the seams are all at the top it's a natural location for water to pool and gravity to assist it in penetrating the compartment over time. This is exactly what happened to my unit, and within 2 months the silicon portal for the communication LED showed signs of water in the compartment. After having an increasing inability to maintain communication to the base station, I pulled the batteries and let the unit dry out on a warm dry day. I put new batteries in the unit and then closed it back up, but the electronics were apparently damaged by the moisture.
Blue Line Innovations, the maker of the device has a support number that you can call, but the RMA process is different from any other company I have worked with. Apparently the support personnel cannot provide you with RMA information, nor can they directly transfer you to a live person to talk to about getting replacement sensors or getting repairs done, it's a callback model only.
I have been waiting for a callback for over 2 weeks now and I have made calls into the support center on 3 different occasions to try and move the return/replacement process forward and each time I am told that all they can do is forward the information to corporate and that I will just have to wait for the phone call back.
So, the net result is unless you can get this unit on a steep discount from your energy provider it's not worth the retail value, also, if you live in a moist climate you might want to look at adding some additional shielding or silicon the door seals closed from the outside to prevent moisture from prematurely ending the life of the outdoor sensor.
9/9/10 Update: After Tropical Storm Hermine rolled through town, the unit has once again succombed to water penetration into the battery/circuit board compartment. I am officially done with this device and will be replacing it with a T.E.D - [...]
Customer Review: Mine also failed once it rained
Summary: 1 Stars
We got one of these some time ago, and installed the outdoor unit outside on the electric meter (as it needs to be set up). It does provide real-time tracking of your electrical usage, though on our large home we have so many cycling motors in heating systems and refrigerators and such that you could not practically test turning on an off a light and see how it changed the load.
The real weakness of the system is that the sending unit mounts outside on the electrical meter, and while it appears weatherized with seals on the battery compartment and reset switch, we had a heavy rain after a month after installing it, and the seals didn't seem to actually keep the electronic dry. The unit died from the water exposure (and didn't recover once dried out). So while it was pretty neat, it only lasted a month, so I'd avoid this unless your meter is well shielded from rain.
In retrospect I'd suggest looking at the competing products that mount entirely indoors at the circuit panel, as anything less weatherproof than the electrical meter itself just isn't going to last.
Andrew
Customer Review: More Trouble than it is Worth
Summary: 1 Stars
Initially I found this a nifty device, giving good insight into the cost of leaving various lights on and using various appliances. But within weeks it went out of commission whenever it rained, and eventually I had to reinstall it about 3 times (a process which takes about 2 hours and multiple iterations). Within a year it lost all communication, and I was not sure what was wrong since the indicator lights still functioned. Eventually I replaced the batteries in both the sender and receiver, and over the course of 2 weekends managed to successfully reinstall it (yes, it takes that long). When daylight savings time changed, I made the mistake of trying to change the time on the receiver without consulting the user manual. I accidentally reset the receiver, and after 1 hour of trying to synchronize the sender and receiver again, I despair of ever getting working without spending half a day reinstalling the whole thing.
It is a nice idea, but in the end I have just decided it is not worth it anymore.