I like mine.but blew a fuse while testing the microwave. Had to installl a fuse holder and new fuse.
Power settings: learn them, live them, use them.
I had one of those a few years ago; got it from Newegg! It lasted for a couple of years. I’ve been told the devices are handy for general purpose, but not particularly accurate ...
I go look at my meter.
I used 24 kw yesterday
I've had one for years, and it's not all that little. It's a fairly large wall wart.
But it is a nifty device for the curious.
The one I have lets you enter in the $/kWh you pay and it will show what your daily/weekly/mothly $$ usage is for anything plugged in.
It cautions you for things like refrigerators and such with periodic power draw cycles to leave it plugged in a few days to get an average going.
Some surprising things, like the Bunn coffee maker that keeps the water tank warm. Got rid of that. Some wall warts draw power all the time, some do not.
I own 2 of these units and a powerstrip model as well. I don’t use them anymore, but I used one to monitor an ancient chest freezer at the farm I once lived on, what a beast! Over the course of a year the thing was drawing, on average 260W. I explained to my roommate the validity of periodic defrosting, or possibly replacement.
One very interesting product I had installed to monitor the farm house power consumption was a unit call a “TED” (The Energy Detective). The house had a mother-in-law apartment over in the carriage house, and when I wasw trying to isolate phantom loads, I found that the power from the meter came into the farmhouse basement and split like 4 times, a panel was feeding the old pumphouse and dairy barn, another was feeding outbuildings and the 4 bay garage and shop... and here this mystery load was feeding the one apartment for the carriage house, which had it’s own service.
The chick living there had been splitting the power bill with the guy that lived above her... but I found that she was actually running electric baseboard heat, non stop AC in the summer, hair-dryers, her oven, her microwave... all on the main house’s power.
I installed a second TED... and so then I could take the power reading at the meter, the farmhouse TED readings, the carriage house TED reading, and deduce the remainder was for the outbuildings. Her power consumption was significant... about 40% of the main house.
The software for tracking the power instantaneously was very cumbersome and a RAM hog and I have to leave my computer on 24-7... but it was a very interesting unit... sends a signal through the electrical wires in the house to give the instantaneous current draw and voltage to the display unit. Requires minor technical ability to install the current sensors and the voltage pickup... I made sure it was to code to with current protection for the unit itself because it was located in a monstrous fused disconnect box (because the power split 4 ways feeding 6 panels all over the property.
look into it... “The Energy Detective”
My house uses 8 to 10 kwh per day, year ‘round. Things like this do not excite me.
So this is how you get all amp’d up?
I used mine to choose which fans I was keeping, and which ones to give away.