Digital home power/energy monitor

 Not sure where to post this, so I'll start here...

Ran across a couple of digital power monitors for homes and I was
wondering if anyone here has tried one.  The one that caught my
attention was T.E.D.      http://www.theenergydetective.com/what/features.html

PowerCost Monitor from Blueline.  A guy was hawking these things at a
flea market the other day.  I was really interested until I learned it
could not data log:
http://www.bluelineinnovations.com/default.asp?mn=1.274.285

Any pros or cons?  Anyone know what else is out there?  I just want to
know what I am using where so I can make educated decisions on when,
where, how much, and/or should I get a new one.  Got to get my load down
before I do anything else and the "average household" approach only
works on average...!

Thanks
John

  wrote:

This "Kill A Watt" can tell you what each 120V appliance uses. It
doesn't help with built-in 240V devices such as stoves and dryers, but
you can record the electric meter reading before and after using
them.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93519

 FYI: If you have a power interruption you lose all the data.. I
know...




On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:16:40 -0700 (PDT), Jim Wilkins

 
The KAW is an inexpensive and reportedly accurate way to measure the
power drawn by 120V devices so you can see how much they use in
various modes, such as a computer on standby vs hibernating, and
decide whether to keep or replace them.

They aren't perfect for measuring the total consumption over time, but
if you are seriously interested you can do that for free with a
clipboard and your electric meter. Even if you instrumented every
breaker and logged it on a computer you still need to record the
conditions that affect demand, such as outdoor temperature or whether
you cooked dinner in the oven or on the stovetop or went out to eat.

I found it enough to record the cost of one operation with the KAW,
such as washing a load of laundry, and then pay attention to how often
I use the more expensive appliances. In that case I changed to solar
or woodstove heat for the laundry water. The motor uses less than
$0.10 of electricity per load.

 

The T.E.D. works okay as a standalone device if you don't have X10
devices in your home.  I made it work with X10 but it was a nightmare.
X10 is at 120 KHZ and the T.E.D. is at 125 KHZ.  The T.E.D. transmits
every second without listening to the powerline to see if anything is
already
in progress.  I had to create a totally isolated circuit to put the the
T.E.D.
transmitter and receiver on.  The separately (over) priced software has
bugs and puts a heavy load on the computer.  I don't know what language
it is written in but my guess would be flash.  I have the version that uses
a serial port.  The newer version uses a USB port.