"I love my Energy Monitor – do you have one?" blog discussion

winston_1

These so called energy monitors do not do what they say, i.e. measure consumption in watts. Watts is the product of voltage, current, and power factor and these devices only measure current unlike your electricity meter which takes account of all three. That's why they are so inaccurate. I'm truly surprised trading standards have not thrown the book at them.
An OWL I borrowed from Greenwich librarys worked by assuming a constant voltage of 230V which is nonesence as the actual voltage in mainland Brittain is generally around 245v in my experiance. The manual suggested you could change the setting to 240v but it didn't work. After a phone call to the company it transpired you had to change the country setting from UK to other before you could change the voltage setting or change the clock to 24 hour mode which I prefer.
As for power factor there is no way these devices can measure it without a direct connection to the supply. Very few items have a power factor of 1. Your kettle, incandesent light bulbs and electric heaters are about the only things. Anything with a motor will have a power factor less than 1. Someone mentioned a Panasonic DVD player drawing 7w in standby instaed of 1w. Try measuring it with the Maplin plug in monitor which does measure true watts and be enlightened. This plug in monitor can also tell you the power factor.

vadek

winston_1 wrote: »

The manual suggested you could change the setting to 240v but it didn't work. After a phone call to the company it transpired you had to change the country setting from UK to other before you could change the voltage setting or change the clock to 24 hour mode which I prefer.

I have one and didn't have any problem setting the voltage to 240 or the clock to 24H.

GillM

winston_1 wrote: »

These so called energy monitors do not do what they say, i.e. measure consumption in watts. Watts is the product of voltage, current, and power factor and these devices only measure current unlike your electricity meter which takes account of all three. That's why they are so inaccurate. I'm truly surprised trading standards have not thrown the book at them.
An OWL I borrowed from Greenwich librarys worked by assuming a constant voltage of 230V which is nonesence as the actual voltage in mainland Brittain is generally around 245v in my experiance. The manual suggested you could change the setting to 240v but it didn't work. After a phone call to the company it transpired you had to change the country setting from UK to other before you could change the voltage setting or change the clock to 24 hour mode which I prefer.
As for power factor there is no way these devices can measure it without a direct connection to the supply. Very few items have a power factor of 1. Your kettle, incandesent light bulbs and electric heaters are about the only things. Anything with a motor will have a power factor less than 1. Someone mentioned a Panasonic DVD player drawing 7w in standby instaed of 1w. Try measuring it with the Maplin plug in monitor which does measure true watts and be enlightened. This plug in monitor can also tell you the power factor.

but a few people on here have said that they compare favourably with the electricity meter (bearing in mind they are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate anyway) so what's the problem?

Raquela

Am I the only person in the world who is having trouble actually fitting the clip to her electricity supply?! I moved house recently, finally unpacked the energy monitor and went outside to the meter cupboard to discover that there doesn't seem to be any way to connect the clip to the right cable. The cable itself is quite thick, appears to only be about 10cm long, and the other cables which come out of the meter are too thick and stiff to budge.

As my first electricity bill here was £45 for just over a month and my normal usage is £15 a month, I'd like to get this monitor fitted so I can try and ascertain what's going wrong. Can anyone help me, is there anywhere else I can connect this?

vadek

Raquela wrote: »

Am I the only person in the world who is having trouble actually fitting the clip to her electricity supply?! I moved house recently, finally unpacked the energy monitor and went outside to the meter cupboard to discover that there doesn't seem to be any way to connect the clip to the right cable. The cable itself is quite thick, appears to only be about 10cm long, and the other cables which come out of the meter are too thick and stiff to budge.

As my first electricity bill here was £45 for just over a month and my normal usage is £15 a month, I'd like to get this monitor fitted so I can try and ascertain what's going wrong. Can anyone help me, is there anywhere else I can connect this?

The clips for these monitors are normally generously sized and easily fit round one of the four main power cables. 10cm is more than enough. I've fitted two brands of monitor at the same time with room to spare. Can you take a photo and post it?

[Deleted User]

I have an EON monitor but am now with Scottish Power - the lights are on but no readings come through. I am not sure if the thick cables are the problem or me. It is supposed to go onto the computer but it says it has no readings. Would it only work with EON ????

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi whmf

It doesn't matter who supplies your electricity, you can use the monitor regardless of this.

If you're still having problems, I would contact our help desk for advice. Contact details are included in the pack we sent with the monitor.

Sorry you're having this problem whmf but hope this points you in the right direction.

Malc

buglawton

Got mine today and had a fun hour going round house with a torch turning things off and looking at the monitor (lucky the missus is out!). Got it down to a hard core 25W with apparently everything turned off, except for an ancient doorbell transformer that only that goes off if I turn the whole ring main off - so the monitor itself goes off then! I think this 25W is a genuine reading as I can see the meter wheel creeping still.

Then I turned all standby items, internet router + modem and 3 energy saving bulbs back on and the reading is a steady 200W !

Think I had better become a monk and live in a barrel.

Spiggle

Hi All,

Anyone had any odd experience with their energy monitor? My nPower supplied one has been great. We've gradually reduced the daily average cost down from about 70ppd when first plugged in to 41ppd. (Sorry don't use the Kwh bit.) The low cost per day tallies with our recent meter read/bill.

Came home from work on Wednesday to discover the monitor telling us that the average daily use was 105ppd! Ran around house like a mad fool to see what we'd inadvertently left on and there was nothing. Unplugged and left it a couple of days but when restarted still showed the 105ppd.

I need to find the instruction booklet to reset it I know. But I'm very very confused as to why this has suddenly jumped up so high. Any thoughts, opinions or expert knowledge very gratefully received.

Thanks in advance,
Spigs

inicholson

I briefly had an electricity meter and a remote controlled socket both of which I received free. Unfortunately the remote socket stopped working after 2 days and the energy monitor made a high-pitched whistling noise which drove me mad so I had to return both of them.

Can anybody recommend a silent energy meter and/or a reliable remote socket?

I have also discovered a few misconceptions about energy efficient devices from comments on other (shopping) forums. A lot of people seem to be choosing very large fridge-freezers which are A-rated for energy efficiency in the belief that they don't cost much to run (the same as a smaller A-rated appliance). The energy rating is calculated per unit volume so larger appliances with the same energy efficiency rating will use a lot more energy (if it's twice as big with the same efficiency rating it uses twice as much electricity!).

Secondly while investigating why my new microwave doesn't have a power rating on the front I found a lot of people who believe that a C rated microwave is more energy efficient than an E rated one - they're confusing the heating power of the microwave with its energy efficiency. In fact there don't seem to be any energy efficiency ratings for microwaves but comparing several models it seems logical that a 700W microwave with a heating power rating E is more efficient than an 800W model with the same heating power.