Related Sections: Green Tech Household
Black & Decker Energy Power Monitor helps you save big bucks
What's up with Black & Decker lately? The company's gone all green on us — and we're glad — first with that Thermal Leak Detector we showed you last week, and now this ultra-cool EM100B Energy Saver Series Power Monitor. You won't need an electrician to attach its wireless sensor to the glass of your power meter outside, and it works with digital or mechanical meters.
Enter your electricity cost-per-watt into the handheld receiver, and it tells you how much power you're using. Turn on an appliance, and then you can see how much more power it draws. It'll indicate how much you've spent on power in the month so far, showing you how much, for example, that heating system or gaming PC is sucking up. Heed its admonitions, and it could pay back its $100 cost in a couple of months.
Black& Decker and Amazon, via Unpluggd
By emockler at 10:38 PM ON 12/08/08
Too bad it doesn't connect to your pc and dump the info into excel so you can track your usage over time.
By ribex at 12:09 AM ON 12/09/08
Yeah, for $100 it should include info exporting.
While I realize that the cost may be justified by savings over the course of months or a year, it's a pretty big outlay for the average household. I'm kind of hoping that this will encourage other companies to create something similar, and, hence, stimulate price competition/innovation.
I'm rather impressed that it can use the spinning dial meter (or whatever it's called) and that it works wirelessly and in real time. I have the Kill-a-Watt (<$20 if you see a nice sale) but it's not the most user-friendly device and is somewhat cumbersome for those devices that it can even accommodate. The one Amazon review stated it well, that these two devices are complementary.
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ribex:
Yeah, for $100 it should include info exporting. While I realize that the cost may be justified by savings over th...More »