OWL Wireless Energy Monitor - your findings?

credit_crunch_victim

i think they are a great little gadget
our kettle is a 3kw fast boil so goes up 3kw also registers our bathroom lights as 200w which is 4 x 50w downlighters so seems pretty accurate to me

penrhyn

To clear up the accuracy issue, the following figures are from the Owl user manual:

Less than 1Amp: Not Spectified
1 - 3 Amps: better than 10 %
3 - 71 Amps: 5%

1 Amp is around 230 watts
13 Amps is around 3,000 watts.

Magentasue

We don't have an Owl, we have a Currentcost. We also read our meters weekly and compare. When we've used, say, 85kwh in a week, the Currentcost will have recorded three or four more. About 5% difference which isn't a problem for me.

Alan_Vickers

My one day's usage if the Owl is insufficient to decide how accurate it is but readings taken ove the next month or so will hopefully be able to do that. I am very pleased with it, it is a very good gadget and if it is inaccurate I can certainly live with that. I have used two or three different items of known wattage up to 2200 W and the readings on the Owl have changed very close to these values when they were switched on. It must be remembered however that the size of these electrical loads may themselves not be 100% accurate so the Owl cannot give exact readings - it was not intended to do this and is really an educational tool to give guidance on where and how electrical energy iis being consumed.

My comparison was against the total kWh recorded on the electricity supply meter for the same 24 hours and some of the difference could be due to slight variations in voltage which the electricity meter will respond to but the Owl dooes not. One other problem is how accurate is my electricity mete?

tonester

mine was £20 from B&Q this week...
also my usage is under a penny during the day with a couple of chargers on.
1p per hour when the Aquarium fires up (filter and low enrgy bulb)

Of course you can check the meter roughly if you know the wattage of the appliance..
i.e. 3 kilo watt heater @15 p per kilowatt hour should make the meter jump 45 p logically.....!

1carminestocky

Alan_Vickers wrote: »

My one day's usage if the Owl is insufficient to decide how accurate it is but readings taken ove the next month or so will hopefully be able to do that. I am very pleased with it, it is a very good gadget and if it is inaccurate I can certainly live with that. I have used two or three different items of known wattage up to 2200 W and the readings on the Owl have changed very close to these values when they were switched on. It must be remembered however that the size of these electrical loads may themselves not be 100% accurate so the Owl cannot give exact readings - it was not intended to do this and is really an educational tool to give guidance on where and how electrical energy iis being consumed.

My comparison was against the total kWh recorded on the electricity supply meter for the same 24 hours and some of the difference could be due to slight variations in voltage which the electricity meter will respond to but the Owl dooes not. One other problem is how accurate is my electricity mete?

Good question and one I'm sure that would warrant its own dedicated thread!

Alan_Vickers

The point that I was trying to make is that the only thing that we have to compare energy usage with the Owl's readings is the electricity supply meter and whereas I previously said that the Owl's readings were about 7% high I did not wish to imply that this is a criticism of the Owl, far from it. What I was trying to suggest is that we really have no accurate check on the Owl's energy readings but I am happy to live with what it tells me as the readings appear to be quite close to the recorded units on which I am being charged.

supersaver09

tonester wrote: »

mine was £20 from B&Q this week...

£20, that was cheap!

Was it an Owl one?

1carminestocky

Alan_Vickers wrote: »

The point that I was trying to make is that the only thing that we have to compare energy usage with the Owl's readings is the electricity supply meter and whereas I previously said that the Owl's readings were about 7% high I did not wish to imply that this is a criticism of the Owl, far from it. What I was trying to suggest is that we really have no accurate check on the Owl's energy readings but I am happy to live with what it tells me as the readings appear to be quite close to the recorded units on which I am being charged.

I actually agree with you, btw. I'm not of the opinion that electric meters are 100% accurate at all. So, like you suggest, if we assume that the actual meter the OWL is used to compare against is not entirely accurate, it's not fair to label the OWL 'inaccurate' . If you see what I mean

KevinG

Got my free Daily Mail OWL a few days ago and I love it! I leave it on the power consumption display because it's much more meaningful to me and can be directly related to switching things on and off. It seems fairly accurate based on things with a known power consumption, although it sometimes appears not to respond to small changes up or down. I've got quite a lot of stuff on standby and haven't managed to get much under 200W for very long, but it has made me switch some more stuff off at night.