10 Energy monitoring devices
 

For those looking for power savings, here are alternatives to the ever popular killawatt. The article not only includes wireless options, but even web based ones.

10 Monitoring Tools Bringing Smart Energy Home

Hi,
I have the TED (The Energy Detective) one, and I like it. One nice thing about it is that in addition to being able to monitor the whole house power, you can monitor a single circuit by just moving the clip on current transformers to the circuit you want to monitor -- nice for trying to trace down where the power is going in detail. Its also nice that it updates every 1 second -- I had a unit before the TED that only updated about twice a minute, and it was hard to use for situations where you want to switch a load off and on and see what the increment is.
While the software that you can buy with it is not terribly fancy, it will do plots that will show what a circuit (or the whole) is doing second by second for hours.

About the only down side is that you have to be willing to take the cover off the breaker box to do the installation.

Gary

I just recently purchased one of these a few months back, I think it is pretty cool you can see loads cycle on and off. It is pretty interesting to see stuff like the hot water heater cycling on and off.
Makes you a little more aware of stuff running in the house. Figured that a guy could take a clamp meter to each circuit and see what each circuit is drawing to track down phantom loads.

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/image...F7C005-3-l.jpg

Amazon.com: Belkin Conserve Insight F7C005q Energy-Use Monitor: Electronics
This looks interesting.

wow! This is quite nice information sharing in this thread. Extremely pleased to find this site. Many thanks finding the time to share this.

Hi,
I bought one of these Ryobi power monitor units at Home Depot -- about $25(?).
Power Usage Meter by Ryobi

I like it because it retains the values it measures even after you unplug it from the wall -- it has an internal battery. Also easy to use.

BUT, it appears to cut out with not very large loads. If I plug my efficient fridge into it, it will cut out -- apparently it thinks the load is too high. It resets itself after a few minutes. The regular KillAWatt meter has no problem with the fridge.

The Belkin unit posted above looks like it might be a good bet.

Gary

Thanks for the link.