Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 333
 THIS SAVED ME $35.00 A MONTH December 27, 2005
Stan Lam (Los Angeles, CA)
25 out of 25 found this review helpful
I bought this and figured out my 25 year old refrigerator was using over $50.00 a month on electricity. I went out and bought a new refrigerator that only uses $15.00 a month. Now I am saving $420.00 a year on electricity. THIS IS A MUST HAVE DEVICE.
Kill a Watt Meter September 29, 2005
D. Mateja
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
Inexpensive but full featured product which seems well made. Excellent for ad-hoc metering of electrical consumption of most appliances & electronics. I purchased it to measure consumption of the amplification & lighting equipment used by our six member band. Also to test the voltage at the various places we perform. Much cheaper than the "Professional" power strips costing $100 + which do the same thing.
Works as expected September 1, 2005
Scott A. Kirkwood
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
Plug it in and then plug in your device and it'll tell you how many watts it's using. Leave it plugged in and it'll tell you how many Killowatt hours you spend on that device, on average. This is useful for finding out how much your computer is using, for example. I found that my main computer varies from about 100 watts to 250 watts depending on what I'm doing. I also noticed that even when it's turned off it uses 15 watts of power.
If I could find any negatives it's: 1) can't do 220 Volt outlets 2) can't download the information to a computer. 3) have to turn off the device to plug it in. i.e. I have to turn off my computer, plug it in to Kill-a-watt and then plug that into the wall.
But I knew these things before hand.
 Poor form factor, no backlighting - otherwise does what it should May 26, 2006
F. Gibbons (Boston, MA United States)
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
Like most of the other reviewers, I got it because I was interested in knowing how much power my applicances were using, in real life. Most of them will tell you the AC voltage, frequency and power requirements when turned on (look for a label on the back if metal or for the information to be molded into the plastic), but in real life, appliances are turned on and off all the time, either manually (by the user) or automatically (by themselves). For example, in a modern fridge, the compressor will turn on and off throughout the day. It will cycle on/off more frequently in warm weather, and when the door is open. My fridge uses about 650 watts when the compressor is on, and only 30 when it's off. Clearly, you can't just pick one or the other, so you have to average over a time period.
In order to accurately measure true usage, in daily life, you need one of these. You just plug the applicance into it, plug the meter into the wall, and come back in a day (or week), to get a better picture of what's really gobbling power in your house.
My only gripes are:
1. as others have pointed out, it is big, and you can't plug anything else into a duplex outlet with it. (It's also got a ground plug, so you can't plug it directly into an older-style two-prong outlet, but grounding is a good thing, so I can't complain.)
2. although it powers itself by tapping off a little power from the outlet, I think it would have been very convenient if it included a little backlighting (of course, in order not to draw too much power, and mess up the readings it's taking, it should only come on when you press a button, then go out again five seconds later). Outlets are generally close to the floor, frequently behind furniture, and generally out of the way. Once you unplug the meter, the information is lost, so I often found myself on my hands and knees, shining a flashlight at it from an oblique angle (so as not to shine right through the LCD display). Seems like an obvious enhancement that would really make a difference.
3. It would be useful if it could handle 240volts, for electric dryers, but that's a minor point, since the dryer is on when it's on, and off when it's not, so it's completely different from a fridge.
All in all, a useful product, though I think once you've done an initial survey of your house, you won't use it again until you get a new appliance.
Neat Gadget April 24, 2004
David House (Dallas, TX USA)
20 out of 29 found this review helpful
If you are looking to cut down on electricity costs or worried that leaving your computer on all the time is expensize, let this device do the math for you. It will help find those appliances that you suspect are wasting electrity and then you decide whether it is worth keeping them plugged in or not.Just because your tv is not turned on does not mean it is not using power and that blinking 12:00 on your vcr is eating juice as we speak.
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