Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced Power Monitor?

BooJewels

Setting the Tapo P110 up to get going is incredibly easy - install the app and sign up, plug the unit it and choose to add a new unit, follow the on-screen prompts in the app.  Have your WiFi password handy to either paste or type in when prompted and it's up and running in 2 or 3 minutes.

For each additional unit you add, it just asks if you want to use the same WiFi connection as previously, so subsequent ones are even faster.  Should be no reason for hair tearing whatsoever. 

The app has some oddities since a firmware upgrade a couple of weeks ago, but they advised me directly that they've identified the cause and will be issuing a firmware upgrade to address it in the next few days.

badger09

Agree with BooJewels. Setting it up is the easy bit. Learning about its idiosyncrasies which seem to change with every update however..,..

Qyburn

WBCPB said:

Qyburn said:

They were showing in stock when I ordered mine on the 14th October.  Still not arrived and they tell me they're not expected until 18th November.

Oh dear, i feel a complaint looming.

I chased up BT Shop and mine have now turned up. They were £9.99 when I ordered, but BT maths makes that £19.99 for two, and Paypal makes it £20.

thriftytracey

I purchased the Tapo P110.  Spent ages searching how to view energy monitoring in the app once I had installed Tapo on my phone downloaded firmware update and set up home WiFi link and recognition.  

Went online for an answer - "Slide up on the screen with the "ON" icon"  - not very intuitive, but I got there in the end!  The instructions that came with the plug were short and succinct - Install Tapo and follow online prompts.  Saves paper I suppose ...

Incidentally, could not link to Alexa - getting Page Not Found after logging in to Amazon on the screen and linking.  I don't intend to use the timer function so not too bothered - unless there are other functions available in Alexa?

Thanks

Qyburn

There's a timer and scheduler in Tapo, no need to use Alexa.

Speaking of idiosyncrasies I've disabled auto-update on mine. The last firmware update minced all the saved data, so I don't want that happening without prior notice.

thriftytracey

Well, I used the Tapo P110 on our fairly ancient under counter freezer, a Fridgidaire.  Over 24 hours it used 0.825 kwh (57w) which would, using a cost of 34p a unit, total £126.48 pa.  Fairly awful result!

According to Susit:-

https://www.sust-it.net/energy-saving/undercounter-freezers

I could purchase a Fridgemaster MUZ5582M Capacity: 85 L Freezer from £209 at a running cost of £55.84 pa.

Such a shame though, as there is nothing wrong with the freezer, and the fact that we have had it for 20+ years without failing is a testament to it's workmanship, or perhaps luck. 

Not sure whether to hang on to it a bit longer until it breaks down or replace a perfect working freezer with something like the Fridgemaster. 

EssexHebridean

The question is whether such a replacement would actually give that annual running cost in a real world scenario. I’d guess probably not, but realistically there would likely still be a saving on the old one. If we assumed that the saving could be in the region of £50 a year, then4 years to cover costs doesn’t sound too dreadful, does it. 

Qyburn

Our old freezer was using 2.3kWh per day, due to a fault with the defrost system.  New one is currently using between around 0.55 on a normal day, up to 0.75 on the day the messages were delivered. For reference the manufacturer's estimate is 303/year. 

BooJewels

I thought that my getting-on-a-bit upright Beko kitchen freezer might be energy hungry after I'd had problems with power tripping when it was long overdue for a defrost. Was unrelated in the end, but was the first thing I put the P110 on, thinking an upgrade might be in order. 

But it's averaging 0.5kWh per day - a smidge more on the days I put in new shopping - so I'm happy to continue with that.  I also feel a bit of responsibility not to be wasteful of resources too, when it's working perfectly fine. I shall just ensure that I don’t leave it as long before I defrost it in future - although I'll be interested to see if efficiency drops as it frosts up more.  I'm sure it'll be easier and quicker if it isn't in such a bad state.

Archie_Duke

Just dropping a useful link on the P110 thread.
https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/search?sq=Tapo+p110