Free £30 energy monitor - if you give us some feedback on it (50 available)

Former_MSE_Archna

What's this about?

We have 50 free Loop electricity monitors worth £30 to give away, provided you can come back and let us know how you got on with it.

Energy monitors are small wireless devices that hook up to your electricity supply to help you spot energy-guzzling devices and activities, so you can cut back. They don't save you anything directly - it's about becoming more aware of your habits.

This one doesn't have a display - you log into your account online to see your usage. (These are different to smart meters, which are much more sophisticated.)

What do I get?

A free Loop Energy Monitor which includes the £4.99 subscription cost for the first year. After that you need to pay the £4.99, though you don't need to enter any card details now.

To be able to use it you must:

1) Have a broadband router that is no more than 30 metres from your electricity meter (this is Loop's wireless range).

2) Not have micro generation installed (eg, solar), as Loop cannot currently measure export energy.

We'd like you to come back and feed back on the following:

• How easy was it to set up?
• Did it change your energy efficiency behaviour?
• Would you use it long-term?
• Was the dashboard easy to use?
• Did you spot any glitches?

How to get one


Please email {Removed by Forum Team. Offer now closed} with the subject line 'Free Loop Monitor'. Include your address and a promise that you're happy to give us some feedback. We'll pick 50 users at random who give us their address and pledge.

maiasopohie

Dont enter me for the draw as I have a much better all singing & dancing model with a display that came free from EON several years ago. Simple to set up & install. It has a display that shows how many units you used today, yesterday & last week. It shows the cost of running the electical item in real time, also how much if you left it on for a month. Would advise everyone to get one, but it can scare the hell out of you!

SailorSam

I got one of those free ones that click onto the electric meters, can't remember where it came from i think it was Manweb.
Shame on me, it's still in the box. Must get it out.

Mr_K

Worth £30 ? More like £5 and they rarely work properly.

NeoVR2k6

Ive entered the draw, i think that "done right" an elec monitor that can report back using a web interface could be more useful than a generic one.

Should be able to give similar stats as a smartmeter, ovb not to the same accuracy though.

matelodave

I've been using one for several years now and it does help you identify stuff that may be inadvertently left on - a quick glance at the display just before going to bed confirms that stuff is off.

It also showed us how much power gets wasted when stuff is on standby - especially computers, printers and monitors and even washing machines and powered recliner chairs. - I reckon ours has saved us the best part of £100 a year just by being aware.

Yummymummy30

Hello,
I received my energy monitor in the post today. Little too big for my letterbox ! But luckily was in to receive the parcel.
There are no instructions in the box so you have to follow online, I found it really useful that the website checks installation at every point in the process so if something isn't connected correctly you know which point in the process you made the error. I was also happy you can do this from a tablet PC. V user friendly.
The nifty little plug, is slightly annoying as it protrudes so much out of the socket which for me is placed behind the tv stand.
But all in all installation of the internet part was really simple even for a non techno bod like me.
I moved on to connecting to my meter which was technically easy, but tbh a little physically taxing,the meter wires are thick and very stiff coming out of the box. They're also connected to a board so it was a right fiddle trying to get around the third wire in the centre (as an economy 7 customer I have 5 wires so it had to come out of this one).
However eventually managed to slot around.
All seems to be working great , logged into site and entered my energy tariffs and profile. I will shortly be setting some savings targets! So hopefully once I collect more data can see where savings can be made.
All in all didn't drive me loopy at all ! V friendly web interface

gavinchappell

Mine was at home when I arrived, took about 5 minutes to install and works well even with the receiver being about as far away as it's possible to get from the meter box (only place I have spare network and power sockets is in an upstairs bedroom). Going through the online wizard was easy from my laptop and as a technical person I thought it was one of the better written "webapps" I've used - nice interface to their backend systems so you get virtually instant feedback on whether your device has started to call home or not. It's surprisingly hard to do this sort of stuff well but this seems to have pulled it off.

I have a standard 4-wire prepayment meter so installed it on whichever random wire was easiest, and by the time I'd gone back into the house it was picked up and working.

Selected my tariff online and the only issue was that there's a small rounding error. I'm with Ebico (was pleased to see that they were listed in the selection of providers) who charge 15.08p/unit exc. VAT. This works out at 15.834p/unit - Ebico rounds that cost up to 15.84, Loop rounds down to 15.83. It's not likely to be statistically significant, although might be better to always round up as this is the worst case for the consumer and best case for provider, so is likely to be the way that bills are charged (that small amount of money over many customers over many units all adds up).

I intend to use it medium-term, at least for the 12 month subscription included and even after that it may be that the energy savings pay for the £4.99 fee. Although their website estimates me as a low user based on my monthly spend (£30) I'd actually say I'm quite a high user. I work in IT and have a million gadgets (most of which get left on standby more than they should), a number of different computers of which I'm usually using at least one, a home theatre and file storage setup which is on 24/7, etc. So I'm interested whether this thing can give me the motivation to start being more conscious about my energy usage and find ways I can cut it down without impacting my day to day life.

The dashboard seems very straight forward and it's nice to see that the live chart is actually live and refreshes properly without disturbing the rest of your session. It's another thing that not everyone manages to get right on the web, but the people behind Loop seem to know their stuff.

penrhyn

These devices are not particularly accurate, the less electricity you are using the worse they become.
If you can be motivated enough to take weekly reading then imeasure gives a better overview of your energy use, including gas.

http://www.imeasure.org.uk/

gavinchappell

Personally I do imeasure as well, but the reminder emails usually arrive while I'm at work, and it's very likely that by the time I get home I've forgotten. So the readings are sporadic and become less useful because of that. For example, now I think about it, I can't remember the last time I took a reading but it's at least a month ago. Although it'll fill in the missing weeks it can only do it based on averages so having something like this is probably still more accurate for me.

dd23

Hello,
I received my energy monitor in the post today. It was delivered exactly as you advised arriving today & the postman delivered with no hassle.

There are no instructions in the box, I followed them online.

I found it really useful that the website checks installation at every point in the process so if something isn't connected correctly you know which point in the process you made the error.

I’m a working mum, reasonably computer literate, I could imagine the set up is easy for people who are a whiz on computers, I had to think about a couple of items, but the online guide had plenty of pictures to assist.

I set it up in 20 minutes on my own, the longest time waiting was for the confirmation email to arrive, but all done in 30 minutes.

The hardest thing was finding a free socket, I got round this by using an adapter, but reading the FAQs tonight, I see you can plug it into your router.

The red/black plug, is annoying as it protrudes so much out of the socket that I would have to move my cupboard forward, but the adapter meant I could point it upwards which was ideal.

When the kids were down, we had great fun testing the web page & our home gadgets – it’s ok to leave the fish filter on constantly, but definitely made a difference turning even small items off eg the shower pull, stereo, TV & Wii on standby & better to use the one cup instant heat kettle than the regular kettle.
Connecting to the power cable was easy.
I have used Owl monitors & an Npower monitor within the past 2-3 years & this one is amazing!

I love the web based monitoring, budgets, targets & real time usage dial, & it’s connected to my cheap Samsung galaxy y so can be monitored on the go.
There are peak time/energy use graphs which are already showing usage is higher when everybody in home, but in particular dad who insists on turning & leaving everything on!

I live in a 75% male household so my challenge will be with them not the monitor.

Loving it so far.

Many thanks for letting me be one of the 50 Guinea Pigs. DD.