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Studies have shown that properly calibrated displays can have a 20,30, and even 40 percent reduction in energy usage, and this unit can help document the changes.The Watts Up Pro requires a computer or notebook to run the software that is available from the company to chart, graph, and spreadsheet the measured parameters. It is also an incredible unit to document the power reduction in properly setting/calibrating TVs/Flat Panels/projectors and such. While this is not the product of the century or one that will make the top ten list in many peoples minds, this is indeed a great product if you need to know what your current draw and power consumption is on a given appliance. It should be noted that this unit should not be used on high amperage load units such as a refrigerator or an air conditioner, it does have a great function for the miriad of smaller units such as your computer current usage, the display consumption such as a plasma and yes even a LCD since they are getting so large that consumption is up on these as high if not higher than plasmas with the newer power saving electronics.This is a great item to evaluate reducing your "carbon footprint" and finding what products achieve that end. If you are serious about tracking and analyzing your power consumption, then this reasonably priced unit will help you achieve it.
The product is exactly what we needed to test the electrical output of our business products.
The Watts Up Pro is much more than I'll ever use BUT it is very simple to use for the basics that I wanted it for.
I'm working on making some fancy power usage graphs for all of my appliances. All the power data you could ever want, including top notch data logging. For example, my laptop power use in different modes (screen full bright while burning MP3's, dim at idle, and in standby).
While charging 3 AA's it consumes about 70 cents a month but that is if I used it constantly. My four slot AA/AAA charger uses about 4 cents per month when not in use. I think I might look into getting a thermos to keep the coffee warm after brewing. To do multiple items, I'm going to need to write a spreadsheet that will analyze the data while combining different items, or time periods, but I'm sure it will pay off.
It doesn't consume enough wattage to register and the monthly cost of leaving it plugged in is 1 cent. I've also noticed, that many items have a spike in power draw when first turned on or plugged in. The transformer chargers for cell phones, pda, etc. Already found some surprising things: Coffee Maker with timer, uses almost a watt when NOT in use. When brewing and keeping warm, it uses 878 Watts. I'll have to run an experiment.Empty battery chargers are worse though, but I already unplug those when not in use. My pda DC Converter, uses about 1 cent a month when not charging.
I'll pay a penny to avoid having to unplug and plug that in constantly. Voltage is so low it doesn't register. The thermos will pay for itself in 2 or 3 months. When charging it consumes between 2/100ths to 5/100ths of an amp.Same with the cell phone charger.
That's about $11-20 a month at 3 hours per day. I only use it about 4 or 5 hours a month. I know it's not much but why waste. When plugged in but not charging.
There are analysis tools in their software package (the meter itself does a lot of calculations on it's own, you don't have to download the data to get a lot of meaningful numbers) but the software works on one set of data at a time (that I've found). It should reduce the cost to about $1-3 a month to brew 1 pot a day (maybe less - I can't remember exactly how much time it takes to finish brewing a pot). $5 to 8 dollars a month if I run it almost 24 hours a day. It collects a huge amount of info, that is easy to download to your computer. Maximum consumption while charging is 1/10th of an amp.
which so many people insist use lots of energy when plugged in and not in use, don't. I wouldn't be surprised if I found that the converters use more power by continuously spiking when plugged in repeatedly. This is a terrific tool. I should be able to get some more years use out of the Coffee Maker also.Computer with way too many bells and whistles, is much more efficient than I thought. It works great.
Then I'll keep it hot in the thermos. That's around 10-15 cents a month to sit there. I'm unplugging it now. Oh, and my old Tivo that I mindlessly left plugged in when I bought a new Tivo was consuming $1.50 - 2.50 a month.Still need to run 24 hour tests on this stuff to get the best averages, but it's been interesting finding out what individual products really use.
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