Comments on: Kill-A-Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor

By: TrickleStar TV TrickleSaver Power-Strip Review — The Gadgeteer

TrickleStar TV TrickleSaver Power-Strip Review — The Gadgeteer — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:57:12 +0000

[...] the sum of Xs’ power (or Amps) use does not exceed 10A. I used a watt meter (one similar to the killawatt) to measure the basic vampire and working mode of my Samsung DVR/VCR which showed 0.05 and 0.1 A, [...]

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:22:55 +0000

@Rod The EZ is the newer version shows the rate by hour, day, week, month, year that a particular device is using. The previous version only showed you the rate and you had to do the other calculations by yourself.

By: Rod

Rod — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:35:46 +0000

What is the difference between a Kill A Watt and a Kill A Watt EZ ???

By: Keep an eye on your MPG with the ScanGauge II — The Gadgeteer

Keep an eye on your MPG with the ScanGauge II — The Gadgeteer — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:44:07 +0000

[...] for your car that provides a realtime miles per gallon display. It’s almost like having a Kill-A-Watt Electricity Monitor for your car. The Digital Gauges give you realtime data for your vehicle and the built-in Scan Tool [...]

By: BillT

BillT — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:08:46 +0000

I have the EZ model now for about a month. Been testing refrigerators. It seems to have a ‘bug’ – hangs; no button works – until it is unplugged from AC and re-connected. I have left it measuring on one frige – and have been reading the $/mo from time to time – always about 3.5-2.8. Then next reading I get is about 9.5. Hmmm. So, I have read out the data – appears that the measurement period is about 94.57 hours …
I noticed that you have measured for 115 hours on one of your gadgets. Anyhow, I’m going to RMA it.

By: Les Hudson

Les Hudson — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:33:23 +0000

I dont understand the difference between active power Watts and the Power Factor (P.F.)
I got my Kill A Watt yesterday and my TV, VCR, DVD & Satalite box all turned off ( stand by ) is 30 watts or 50 power factor.
Which number will give me an accurate instant usage reading?
Thanks Les

By: Terry

Terry — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:15:41 +0000

I realize this is an older posting, but after reading the comments I thought I could help a little bit. I work for an electric utility (cooperative) and after attending a forum on these I was investigating which in home displays and monitors would be best to offer our consumer-owners. The kill-a-watt looks to me like a good piece of an integrated system that would also include an in home electric monitoring device. As far as plugging in your electric rate, I would recommend taking the bottom line on your electric bill and dividing that number by your kwh usage. This way the fuel adjustment, debt adjustment, taxes, etc. would be included in the cost. This would “true up” the actual cost of a device’s use. Technically you should only add the parts of your bill that vary with the amount of usage: fuel adjustment and taxes vary with the amount of energy used. Monthly service fee or customer charge or whatever your utility calls it is the same every month. Don’t worry too much about PF on the display. This is the power factor and no utility charges residential customer for a poor power factor. Power factor is what some company is using as a selling point on their energy saving device (I think it was around $300). This is just a capacitor to bring a lagging power factor closer to 1.0. It does not save money. One more thing, you are correct about voltage fluctuation. It is a function of how much load is on the line, and at our utility we correct the voltage on average every 30-45 seconds, and then only if it is more than 1.5-2 volts out of range for that period of time.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:45:38 +0000

Interesting comments. I think I might buy one. Any ideas on how to check a hot water heater – 220 V

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 01:17:52 +0000

My electric bill just shot up $60 since last month, and my roommate blamed my new laptop. Good to know it’s less than $4/month to run the thing.

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:38:05 +0000

Tail Chou:
It appears to work when used with a 3 to 2 prong adapter. I plugged the combo into a wall socket and it powered on normally.

By: Tail Chou

Tail Chou — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:12:06 +0000

My house has the old style 2 prong plug in’s on the wall outlets.
Will the Kill a Watt work with the grey outlet adapters as most
other things will?
Thanks,
T’ail

By: norman

norman — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:28:19 +0000

120 volts AC is the nominal voltage-it can vary quite a bit depending on load. A few volts each way, as you’ve noticed, is normal. Brownout conditions can reduce voltage to 110, or even 105. I’ve also seen as high as 125, usually when there’s a problem in the local grid, when an area looses electricity, and surrounding areas absorb the overvoltage until it’s corrected.

By: Alanisgood

Alanisgood — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:02:27 +0000

Yeah, if it had a cord of its own and you could slip it into the duplex or the power strip. Otherwise, awesome product and great review!

By: pjd

pjd — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:42:09 +0000

One con of the product is you can not plug in the device to a wall outlet without first removing the other plug from a duplex outlet. The location of the Kill-A-Watt plug in relation to the shape of the device enclosure does not allow one to also use the other plug in a duplex outlet at the same time. Otherwise, it’s a neat little gadget!

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:08:47 +0000

For some reason my freezer results post isn’t here anymore… Hmmmm… Anyway, my old freezer (from the 70’s) shows that it is only costing me $56.71 per year to run. That’s not bad at all. I’m going to check my electric water heater now. It’s less than a year old.

By: jzz

jzz — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 04:11:03 +0000

I’m glad you liked it. As for PF, that has something to do with how efficient a circuit is at transferring current. Actually it goes deeper, but for example if you measure something with a very direct current transfer like a hot plate, you would get closer to 1. A light bulb would get .99 or 1. If you measure your old freezer you will probably get closer to .50 because the power transfer isn’t as simple and direct. Typically things with motors get lower numbers especially if they are older.

If you plug nothing into it you should get small random numbers around .1, .15, .14 etc. But I wouldn’t worry if you don’t. These units seem to have small quirks that are unimportant. Like mine showing 1 watt with nothing plugged in isn’t a concern. Also the PF isn’t that important of a measurement for figuring out costs etc, plus the power company only charges for watts anyway. So was your freezer an electric hog?

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:07:54 +0000

jzz:

Thanks for all your info, it was very enlightening! It reminded me to go test my old freezer. I just plugged it in, we’ll see how much mine is costing me per year when I check it again tomorrow.

My device doesn’t show it’s pulling 1 watt when nothing is plugged in to it. However, it does show that the P.F. is at 1.00. I don’t know what that is though…

Happy measuring!

By: jzz

jzz — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 05:48:50 +0000

Hi again Julie. I got the EZ right after I wrote. Here are the results for the 20 cubic foot freezer. By the way 18 to 24 hours was more than enough to get an accurate result, but I let it go 32.5 hours before deciding it wasn’t going to change anymore. It was about the same since 18 hours had past. It used 6.69 kWH. At a rate of $0.141 it cost $253/year to run! I wish we your rate of .083 but I’m glad yours isn’t as high. It uses 260watts, 330watts peak. It’s not as bad as I thought, but considering a new one costs between $50 and $70 a year to run it’s about 5 times the power usage. It wastes between $180 and $200 a year. So a $630 replacement would pay for itself in about 3 years. A 15 cubic foot for $430 would pay for itself in about 2 years. The old one was probably bought between 1968 and 1972. Say 1970, but I can’t be exact on it.

There is a small fridge next to it in the garage that I’m currently testing. After one hour it says $125 per year!! That’s not good when one of similar size could only cost about $40 a year. It still needs time to test though. Then there is a kitchen fridge which is a 2001 model, 27 cubic feet and should cost only $92/year to operate.. But it hasn’t been tested yet. Hopefully it’s efficient as they claim. Not as efficient as a chest freezer, but $92 makes sense for a big fridge that everyone uses.

I also tested a 75 watt bulb and it was 85. A 60 watt that was 61. A hepa air cleaner that was 180 on high! If I plug nothing into it, it says it’s using 1watt. Does yours do this too or do you read zero? Not that 1 watt is a big deal, but I was wondering. Over all the EZ is really useful and fun to use. It was worth paying the extra $20 for this one that shows the costs. I’m good at calculating the kilowatts and multiplying by costs, but I don’t want to be continually doing that. If I want to measure 10 different things, it’s more useful to see the costs as it’s doing it in real time rather than continually add it up on a calculator. In comparison to the big electric bills an extra $20 is nothing and worth it. I’m off to measure more things, :wow: LOL! Jim

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:00:11 +0000

jzz:

Please do come back and post after you’ve done your tests with your Kill-A-Watt EZ. I want to hear about the old freezer. I actually have one of those in my basement. I know it’s not as old as the 60’s, but it was actually remember it in the house I grew up in. So it has to be from the 70’s for sure. I’ll have to test mine too!

By: jzz

jzz — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:34:58 +0000

Sorry for 3 posts in a row, but I wanted to add that you have the [SIZE="4"]best[/SIZE] review of the Kill A Watt EZ on the internet Julie! The pictures are great too. Thanks for putting it up!

By: jzz

jzz — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:25:56 +0000

Hi Julie. Yes, the small fluctuation is normal. What the power company delivers will fluctuate ever so slightly. I can see this in my volt meter. I also have a cyberpower UPS and it displays a fluctuating voltage on screen. Any number of things could have slight deviances in them. The EZ could drift a little as well. So given that the meter and the power company can have slight drift, you’ll see it change. My voltage here was 122 last night and now it says it’s 124. Another reason the power from the electric grid can change is could be do to the changing load placed on it at all times. They always try to keep it adjusted. That said, I’m still waiting for my EZ to arrive. Can’t wait!

By: jzz

jzz — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:48:12 +0000

I just ordered the p4460, EZ and I may have it by the weekend.. It looks like it will be a lot of fun. We have a freezer from maybe 1968 that I suspect is an electricity guzzler. It says 4.3 amps on the back. But from what I hear, you can’t really know what it will be until it’s tested. It could be higher or lower. If it’s as much of an electric guzzler as I suspect, it may be costing $600 a year to run. Especially since electric is .14 per kilowatt here! Even if it’s only $200 to run, it’s still an electric hog.

There are tons of other things I want to test as well. I’ll probably test all the computers, the Tivo as well. I’d bet I can get it to pay for itself. But I know it will be somewhat of a toy too because it looks fun to have.

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:08:55 +0000

One thing I noticed while I was doing testing for this review was that my voltage and amp readings seemed to fluctuate a little bit. The readings didn’t vary wildly, but maybe it would show 121.9V and then later it might be 122.1V or something. Is that normal I wonder?

By: eichin

eichin — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:00:37 +0000

I’ve had an earlier model for a while… for the non-electrically-savvy user, I would suggest that the other thing worth understanding is the Amps reading – that’s the “unit” that fuses and circuit breakers are in, so if you watch the refrigerator during a compression cycle, and the microwave on 100%, and add up the values, you can see why they might blow a 15A circuit breaker if they both come on at the same time

It’s also useful for detecting devices that have “instant on” circuits, like some televisions, where they still draw a lot of power when “turned off” but still plugged in.

(Hmm, they were supposed to come out with a serial-port version so you could record and graph usage, but I don’t see it on the P3 site.)

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 02:55:40 +0000

MrBill:

The P4400 was the previous model of the Kill-A-Watt. The model number for the Kill-A-Watt EZ is P4460 and is their latest.
Yes, it is really handy and eye opening!