P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
January 20, 2010 by Admin
Filed under Energy Accessories
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8 Responses to “P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor”Material Connection Disclosure
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Works, but could be much more useable
This little guy does what it’s supposed to do. The amount of information you gather with it and what you do with that information is up to you. I commend anyone who takes energy conservation seriously enough to use this device and modify his usage based on what he learns. I’ve been energy-conscious for years, so I haven’t come across any new ways to reduce my electric usage, but maybe I will some day. I did learn that once I turn a fan on the speed doesn’t have much affect on the power consumed, so I’ve turned one up now. I guess that means the Kill A Watt has encouraged me to use more electricity. LOL I also used it to check the voltage drop when I turned a high wattage device on, which was interesting.
One of the more interesting experiments I did with it was to test the power consumption of my audio system. Amplifiers are labeled with the standard power consumption labels, but their actual power consumption varies significantly depending on the volumes they have to reproduce. So I plugged the Panamax that protects the front end of my A/V system into the Kill A Watt (the side and rear amps are on other outlets) and found that even though I have three 200-watt amplifiers rated labeled as using about 300 watts each, and a powered sub with a 400-watt amplifier labeled as using 600 watts, I couldn’t get the actual power usage up much over 500 watts while watching U-571 (which makes serious use of a subwoofer) at volumes no one would ever tolerate if I had guests, and that includes powering the display and my digital processor. At normal volume levels, I was looking at peaks of around 350 watts.
But here’s why I knocked it two stars:
- The prongs on the back are so high that the bottom of the unit blocks the lower receptacle of an outlet if you plug the Kill A Watt in the upper receptacle. If they’d reversed the vertical offsets of the prongs on the back and the receptacle on the front you could use the bottom receptacle while this is plugged in the top.
- The display is on the front of the unit. Since most receptacles are 18″ or so off the floor, this means you pretty much have to get on your hands and knees to read the thing. It would have been much better had the display been at a 45 degree angle so you could read it comfortably while looking down on it.
Both of the previous two issues go away if you use a good extension cord to connect the Kill A Watt to the outlet, but both could have been addressed by simple design changes.
- As someone else noted, there is no backlighting, so for many uses a flashlight will come in handy, especially if you don’t use an extensions cord.
So with three very minor design changes it would have been a lot more convenient to use.
- I think it’s overpriced. Designing a device like this doesn’t require an electrical engineering degree. A kid with an interest in electronics could do it and it can’t cost more than $2 to make in China. They probably justify the price on the premise that it will save you a lot of money, but realistically you can save just about as much using common sense and turning stuff off or unplugging it when you aren’t using it. (If it’s warm when you aren’t using it, it’s wasting energy.) Also, this only works with things you can plug into an outlet. If you’re looking to save energy, remember that there are lots of devices in most homes that won’t work with this, such as room lighting, outdoor lighting, heat pumps, water heaters, ceiling fans, and so on.
I have learned some very interesting things with it, but nothing yet I can use to save me money. Your mileage may vary.
Rating: 3/5
Two years ago, my electricity consumption jumped about 40% and I ignored the problem until this fall’s rate increases. I wanted to find out what I bought back in 2003 that’s still eating power today. Enter the P4400 Kill-A-Watt unit, which is the only low-cost product of its type on the market today. I tried but failed to find its specifications online. So I bought a couple of these things to try them out. Here are the details on what it can do.
* How big is the display: 4 digits.
* What are the front-panel button capabilities: volts, amps, watts, volt-amps, power-factor, frequency (hz), KWH, timer (since reset).
* Does it lose its data in a power failure: yes.
* You have to plug the unit into a nonswitched wall outlet, it can’t measure overhead lighting or large appliances.
* It will report the amount of time (hours:min up to 99:59, then hours for about a year) since last reset but won’t tell you how much of that time the attached device was powered on.
How did I figure out usage? I created an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns: Device, estimated wattage, estimated hours/month, kilowatts avg/month, measured kwh/day, measured kilowatts, annual cost. I went through the house and inventoried everything I could find, entering it into a row of the spreadsheet. Then I filled in the estimates:
- Hours/month: if I use a TV 3 hours a day, I enter the formula 3*365/12; if I use a treadmill 45 minutes on 10 days a month, the formula is 0.45*10*365/12.
- Kilowatts (average over the month): formula is watts*hours/(24*365/12)/1000. If you have a 60-watt light left on 24/7, you should see the value 0.060; if you have it on a 12-hour timer, you should see the value 0.030.
- Annual cost: formula is kilowatts*365*24*cost. Locally the cost is 13.5 cents so a 100-watt device works out to $118.26 per year.
OK once I have that chart I then plug in the Kill-A-Watt to measure the items that might be chewing up more power than my estimates. For a device that you leave on all the time and which uses a steady number of watts, you can simply measure it for a moment and enter the kwh/day figure into your spreadsheet quickly. For devices like refrigerators or computer monitors or TV sets, you will want to leave the unit plugged in anywhere from a day to a week before entering your kwh/day figure.
The first thing that leaped out at me was how much it costs to run those econo-box desktop PCs. Sure enough, the culprit turned out to be those hot AMD and Intel processors: the tech industry wants you to focus on gigahertz and other performance numbers; they’ll never tell you how many watts the computer will draw–because no one asks, not even Consumer Reports. A modern desktop easily draws 100 watts: refer to my earlier figure to see how much that costs, a dollar amount bound to go up in the future. Laptops would save power (though not necessarily enough to make up for the purchase price). Turning off the PC when not in use would save money, but at the cost of productivity: if you value your time, you don’t like waiting 2 minutes every time you want to check an email (add those 2 minutes up over the course of a year!)
Bottom line: the Kill-A-Watt device will focus your attention on some of the devices that are costing you unnecessary money, and will definitely change the questions you will be asking as you purchase future household devices. I’d like to see a more feature-laden version, but not if it makes the Kill-A-Watt cost much more than the $25 I paid.
Rating: 4/5
The meter died after 15 minutes of use at 5% capacity.I called the factory rep and they said I had two choices for getting a replacement, thru them or Amazon.I chose Amazon and got a new unit the next day! Amazon also reimbursed my return postage!The replacement came in a slightly different package so I knew this came from a new lot.Working in electronics I am familiar with infant mortality.The second unit works great with no problems.The unit found electric leaks which switchable power strips fixed.Testing my computer allowed me to install a gaming graphics card without upgrading my puny 250w power supply.I will be able to help my friends and relatives reduce their electricity cost.
Rating: 5/5
For those with HAND problems:
The packaging is one of those that makes it extremely difficult completely plastic enclosed types with NO easy way to open. Hard even with electric scissors since there is no easy level place to begin, all around is tightly sealed and Curved.
It is NOT battery operated at all. Therefore you must be able to plug it in first – it is 3 prong, so if you have an old house with 2 prong this can’t directly plug in.
It is VERY difficult to get ANYTHING you plug in Unplugged from it – requires good hand strength. No matter how easy a plug is to get in and out of outlets/power strips – it gets Stuck in this thing.
Also if you have poor lighting or furniture around your plugs that give shawdows, you will need some lighting to see this – no backlite to it.
Rating: 3/5
I question its accuracy
I experimented with this using known values. For some examples, I plugged in a 75 watt light bulb and its readout said it was using 68 watts. On a 60 what bulb, it read 60. On a 40 watt bulb, it read 38. On a 25 watt bulb, it read 23. I have an LED night light that its specs states it uses between 1 and 2 watts but this watt meter said 0. I have an incandescent night light that is rated at 7 watts but the watt meter read 2. I tried it on 3 TVs and compared the watt meter readings to the manuals specs. The 1st TV manual states it uses 280 watts but the meter read 154. The 2nd TV is rated at 175 watts and the meter read 100. The 3rd TV is rated at 160 but the meter said 125. If you do the math, you can see that the percentage of error is not even consistent. I tried it on the TVs with them turned off to see what they drew for their instant on feature and it read 0 for all 3 TVs. If any of you try this experiment I’d like to hear your results.
Rating: 1/5
Quite a handy & useful device, while I don’t expect 100 % accuracy it gives a
very good guide to power consumption in domestic appliances, etc.
Today I found out that my PC uses approximately .09 kWh of electricity per hour,
I was also able to know that it consumes around 100 watts of energy almost the
same for my television set.
In addition to kWh it allows you to measure amperage voltage stability etc.
Shortly I shall be using it on my refrigerator, washing machine and almost
all the electrical gadgets at home.
Rating: 5/5
Great product! To save energy, my wife and I have been keeping electrical appliances unplugged. There have been some items that I thought didn’t need to be, like a toaster, but my wife still insisted on keeping them unplugged when not in use. With this product we are able to determine what can be left plugged in and not affect our energy usage.
Rating: 5/5
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