Comments on: Black & Decker Power Monitor Review

By: rvcloser

rvcloser — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:36:50 +0000

Am in Texas and our electric service company just removed ours…Its a shame.

By: Chuck Haahr

Chuck Haahr — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:35:20 +0000

Before you purchase one and install it on your meter, you should contact your local utility company. It may be against their policy to allow you to hook up any type of equipment onto their equipment. Other devices that provide similar information that can plug into your breaker box may be a better solution.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:28:04 +0000

Tyler – It is on it’s way
Vic – There are also two batteries in the unit outside that have to be replaced once a year or so. Maybe you threw it away for nothing.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:24:18 +0000

I received this item as a gift as I was always complaining about my power bills. I always felt there was something wrong with my new geothermal system but people laughed and said my bills were in the normal range for a home my size. With this device, I was able to convince the installer that there was something wrong as we stood and watched the power monitor when the geothermal unit turned off and on. In the end, they found a small wire had burnt out in the motor. Not only did this devise cut my power bills in half, it made eveyone in the house energy aware and turn things off or down when not in use. My nagging has hit an all time low! It has become a standard present for me to give. Great idea!!!

By: Vic

Vic — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:46:06 +0000

Got mine for $49. and see where some are sold now for $37. but
mine only lasted about a year and poooooof….. will not sync to
the display unit even with new -good batteries in each unit and
placed right next to each other. Tossed in the trash barrel and
wrote it off as another piece of cheap Chinese junk. Don’t waste
your money. It did NOT tell me anything I didn’t already know
about electricity consumption not did it save me a single penny.
It only made some CEO a little richer ! ! !

By: Luis

Luis — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:02:27 +0000

The device does exactly what they say it does. A pleasent surprise now a days,
I have a small hotel and it really makes a huge diference on my consumption. We have a/c and baseboard heaters in all rooms so the expendature is huge, this is up north canada so -40c draws a lot of power. Now I know if a heater is on or someone has air and heating on at teh same time..(I use 3 sensors and 3 meter reception unit, 1 oer meter) I am not concern about the totals counts to be to accurate. I need order of magnitude and consumption change, thats all anyone really neds. It has also allow me to see the diference between the a/c consumptions. i.e: 2 units rated exactly the same EER of 10.4 spend diferent amounts. one spends 1 0.7 kw/h(noma) for 5350 btu and the other one clocks 1.4 kilowat hour(ironically black and decker ac) for the same btu…now if they both ahve the same eer and btu the spendature should be the same..butit is not..they will tell you that one unit is more effective that the otherone but hands down one is spending doble when the compressor is on…period and the one spending 0.7 is way more effitient I can hear teh compressor going off all the time while the other one closk the 1.4 always and barely turns off…Another problem we had recently was some tard pluging in a heater..the thing was drawing 4.5 kw/h…like a dryer…only running more than 4 hours a day. I caught the spike as I have this thing with me at the reception…I love it…you can also detect defective appliances and old fans that draw huge amounts, it goes on and on,

So there is my feedback…and my modo…”you cant price it if you cant see it” this litle thing shows me yet another component to me.

Wishlist…a nice link to the pc to dump all the consumption records.

Take care!

By: Brent

Brent — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:30:30 +0000

Have had this product for about 6 months now and it has shaved about $40 / month or about 20% off our electric bill. Easy to install and very fun/informative/surprising to see what different items in the house are using. We learned that our Wii charger stand (not the wiii console) was using as much as our plasma tv, dvd, and tuner combined – so needless to say the wii charger is on a separate power bar now and only used as needed vs being on all-the-time. Great product and withstands our -40 Canadian temperatures just fine!

By: Paul T

Paul T — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:44:53 +0000

I have used this device for about a year. I can say it’s help me save about $100 / month in costs. It really helped me understand where the waste is coming from.

In my case it was the light bulbs driving the waste. I changed the bulbs over to CF starting with the rooms where the kids were and went from there… I was surprised that my PC’s, 50″ LCD TV, and 36″ “tube” tv were not the big culprits.

Now that I have a good grasp on my waste, I’m going to lend to my brother.

Highly recommended…

By: Larry Roach

Larry Roach — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:55:48 +0000

The power utility where I live, (SaskPower in Saskatchewan Canada), not only encourages the use of this devise, but also subsidizes the purchase price. The power utility in the Garden State should perhaps stop and smell the roses!

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:21:47 +0000

If you want to monitor your usage and not be concerned with the electric company having issue with items like the black and decker I would suggest getting a TED device, it works like this product but you hook it up to your electrical box inside the house, where the electric company never bothers you. Be careful you have to do some minor wiring in the box and unfortunately the monitor is not wireless but it uses no batteries so less stuff in a land fill. You can also get software where it will log your usage. Google “the energy detective” to find it. It’s about 50 bucks more then the B&D product but I think it may be better, but I couldn’t help looking for alternatives to it and I found this article.

By: New Toy « Red Herrings

New Toy « Red Herrings — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:05:29 +0000

[...] the gadgeteer (One horror story comment: here) [...]

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:45:08 +0000

@didierx: Unfortunately, it is not that sophisticated…

By: didierx

didierx — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:36:22 +0000

“is it possible to program the unit , to calculate by day the first 30kwh at one price, and the rest of kwh used at an other price(usually higher), and have the unit remake the calculation for each day?”

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:08:47 +0000

From an electric companies perspective, you should call your provider to see if you can attach these to the meter. For someone who doesn’t know what this unit is, it could be viewed as something to alter the readings on the meter to try to steal electricity/ or lower your actual bill.

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:00:48 +0000

MyRealGenius:

Yikes! Since the customer service rep admitted to destroying your property, I would think you would be within your rights to request that they pay you for the damage to the monitor...

BTW: I'm glad I don't live in NJ ;o)

By: MyRealGenius

MyRealGenius — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:55:26 +0000

Warning Will Robinson - Warning!!!

I Have, I should say HAD one of these installed for a few days. Then one morning I saw that it stopped working at the receiver. I get dressed and go out into the cold, and BAM!!! It was Gone! Nope, It didn't Slip Off. It was flat out removed from the meter. Who would do something like this? Did someone see me putting this up and a jealous neighbor decided to take it from me? Not that I could figure out at all from asking around. I went and Called the Police, they came out to my house the next day to file a report, because I guess the next day is the best you can get for 18K a year in this area for your property taxes!

Sorry I got side tracked with the Corrupt New Jersey Tax system. Well I filling out my report with them in the cold, and my very nice mailman asks if everything is OK? I went and told him what I had purchased, and how some creep went and removed it. NOW HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS ...His reply was that he saw the PSE&G Guy taking a readings yesterday in the area, which is almost always close to the end of the month. I ran right to the phone and called the local utility company, and they got in touch with the service people that was taking the readings the day before. In just about 30 minutes I got a call from a Service Supervisor and they confirmed that their Tech "Did Remove this from my Meter, and was discarded." YES HE SAID DISCARDED!!! He went on to tell me that I "RENT" the Meter, I do not own it. For this reason it was removed from my meter, and Thrown in GET THIS, MY OWN TRASH CAN!!! I was rather upset over all this and started to yell, and he started to yell back that if I want to mount anything on the meter I can just buy the meter from them and do anything I @#$%ing Want! YEP, I got the F-BOMB Dropped on ME!

Well a Long Story Short at this point, I did recover the Device and mounting band which was cut off. The unit was damaged on purpose as it looks like the Meter Reader Jumped up and down on it crushing the outer case, and the extension arm was cleanly cut off with some kind of cutters. That Tag on mine meant nothing at all to them, except Remove Me and be a JERK!

Insult to Injury now, I get a Bill from them for the removal and disposal of the "Foreign Device" from my meter for $196.88. Followed with a Bill to replace the Glass Dome as it was damaged when it was removed from the meter by force, and this said force caused the meter to come separated from the wall causing damage to the integrity of the meter housing. Now I have a Bill for over $2000.00 for all this upset, and what will I do? Well the fees were added to my Utility Bill, ya know what happens when you refuse to pay you Utility Bill?

You get your plug pulled...BEEP BEEP BEEP, got to go! My Battery is going dead on this laptop while I'm using my flash light...BEEP BEEP BEEP. . . . . . . BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP - SPUTTER - POP - FIZZ . . .

(To Be Continued...)

[Edited at November 30, 2008 21:58:10 PM.]

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:36:08 +0000

Robert:
Yes, that’s what it is )

By: Robert L Grenader

Robert L Grenader — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:32:12 +0000

I wanted to ask, is that white tag on the meter head a “don’t worry, we’re not breaking anything” disclaimer for the meter reader?

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:05:53 +0000

Robert:

While this product won't give you an absolute accurate reading of what your bill will be for the current month, I think it can be a good tool. Anything that gets people to actually care about the resources that they are using and how to control them is a good thing in my opinion.

That said, I think I like the Kill-a-watt product better...

Hey, if you build me a $10k system, I'll review it ;o)

By: Robert L Grenader

Robert L Grenader — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:56:35 +0000

I do building automation systems for a living, and while commendable, this "Power Monitor" is jsut another attempt to pry $$ out of your pocket for no good reason. The only true way to determine usage is to measure and track killowat hours (KWh) and see the impact of various house systems.

So, for $10,000, I could provide a kick ass building automation system that would allow you to measure realtime power consumption, add the values to a database, provide realtime trending of usage, provide automatic import into Excel where you could analysize to your hearts content.

You could also turn lights on and off, manage your HVAC systems, take advantage of "free cooling", etc all from your PC. It would also make you the envy of EVERY GEEK IN THE COUNTRY.

Woo Hoo.

[Edited at November 23, 2008 10:57:23 AM.]

By: Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:35:32 +0000

Thanks for info. Only 60ft that really limts it’s use.

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:47:11 +0000

Paul:

I just found the specs... The range is up to 60ft.

By: Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:31:14 +0000

Canâ€™t find the manual online. How far does the radio signal transmit. I am in apt Paying $156 a month and I think it is the hot water heater and refrigerator making the bill so high. But with the meter being 80 – 120 feet away I hope it will work.

By: Tyler Puckett

Tyler Puckett — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:35:05 +0000

I think a device like this with a little more intelligence (ability to look up rate information on-the-fly via WiFi, or have a computer app to write information to it rather than programming via buttons, reset itself automatically, etc.) would be much more useful.

Although, it's not terribly difficult to read your own meter and figure your usage and bill minus fees from there.