Aldi Energy Monitor - Is Yours Accurate?

pejayuk

I purchased one of the Monitors for £6.99 (They were back in again Sunday 21 September). It seemed to be Ok to start with and quite accurate. But I noticed over time, the Voltage gradually increased. It was going up to over 280V after a few hours.

I have checked my supply voltage with a two multimeters and it is a constant 240V. The manual states that the monitor has an accuracy of +/- 3% so it should not show a reading above 247V.

I returned it today to a different Aldi and they exchanged it, but the second one seems just the same. As I assume an accurate voltage reading is necessary to be able to calculate the power an appliance is using accurately, these seem pretty useless.

Just wondered if anyone else has experienced the same problem, or have I just been unlucky to get two faulty ones.
Thanks

wizzywig27

Hey

Sorry I cant answer your question, but would like to ask, do these work with Economy 7 tariffs?

Thanks

1carminestocky

IIRC you can only set one tariff into them.

wizzywig27

thanks for the info, I need to find one that works with economy 7, but I will post another thread as I dont want to hikacj this one

thanks

Cardew

wizzywig27 wrote: »

Hey

Sorry I cant answer your question, but would like to ask, do these work with Economy 7 tariffs?

Thanks

It depends what you mean by 'Work'.

They will measure Economy 7 voltage, current, kW and kWh in exactly the same way. There is absolutely no difference between Economy 7 and 'normal' daytime supply.

You will have to chose which price you want to enter - the day rate or the night rate. I am not aware of any power meter that can 'sense' when you have switched from day to night rate.

JayMT

Cardew wrote: »

It depends what you mean by 'Work'.

They will measure Economy 7 voltage, current, kW and kWh in exactly the same way. There is absolutely no difference between Economy 7 and 'normal' daytime supply.

You will have to chose which price you want to enter - the day rate or the night rate. I am not aware of any power meter that can 'sense' when you have switched from day to night rate.

I have a Brennenstahl PM-230 power meter, on which you can programme two different prices for different times of the day. It doesn't sense the actual switch-over times, you simply programme them as clock times instead.

It also has battery backup so it doesn't forget the readings when you unplug it.

1carminestocky

JayMT wrote: »

I have a Brennenstahl PM-230 power meter, on which you can programme two different prices for different times of the day. It doesn't sense the actual switch-over times, you simply programme them as clock times instead.

It also has battery backup so it doesn't forget the readings when you unplug it.

I would imagine that's exactly what you would do with the Wattson and the soon to be released Eco-Eye. I think even Q would struggle to implement a 'sensing' feature into it.

espresso

wizzywig27 wrote: »

thanks for the info, I need to find one that works with economy 7, but I will post another thread as I dont want to hikacj this one

thanks

I have a plug in type energy monitor that I bought from Lidl about three years ago for £4.99 and this can be programmed for Dual Tariffs e.g. E7 etc.



To the OP, just checked the voltage and it's reading 232V.

:cool:

wizzywig27

Cardew wrote: »

It depends what you mean by 'Work'.

They will measure Economy 7 voltage, current, kW and kWh in exactly the same way. There is absolutely no difference between Economy 7 and 'normal' daytime supply.

You will have to chose which price you want to enter - the day rate or the night rate. I am not aware of any power meter that can 'sense' when you have switched from day to night rate.

yeah, the wattson does it, as does the e.on version...

Cardew

wizzywig27 wrote: »

yeah, the wattson does it, as does the e.on version...

The wattson is a completely different type of meter to the Aldi meter that is the subject of this thread,

The Aldi/Lidl/Maplin meter calculates the consumption of individual appliances. e.g. plug in your freezer and leave it for a week and it will tell you how many kWhs it has used - and if you have difficulty with simple arithmetic;) they can be set to tell you the cost. e.g freezer uses 10 kWh and each kWh costs 10p so the cost is err err (sorry haven't got my calculater to hand)

The wattson is like the Owl and Electrisave in principle and simply displays and records the consumption of the whole house, it cannot tell you the consumption of, say, the freezer.

pejayuk

Yes I can confirm that the one I purchased from Aldi (Like the one mentioned that Lidl previously sold), can be programmed with both economy 7 and standard tariffs. The time each tariff starts is also programmed in. But also like others have said, this is used only to measure the consumption of individual appliances and not the total consumption of all circuits in the house.

When I exchanged mine today, they only had a few left, so most will probably be gone by the end of the week. If anyone does get one, I'd still be interested to know what the voltage is reading.