This is pretty much targeted at UK people or anyone who has bought a Wattson Energy monitor.
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the kit is a lovely thing, the software that came with it is rubbish. I've taken it upon myself to write my own software. So far, I have a pretty good version working. It totally replaces the Holmes software.
I am kind of stuck though on getting at the data in the Holmes database. Has anyone done anything with it? Anyone else written their own software?
This might not be the best group but.....
Cheers, Crispin p.s. If anyone wants the software, feel free to give me a shout.
at the different devices, but seldom see anything about the wattson, I guess due to the cost of it.
As far as I can see from reviews the efergy and owl are similar, the eco eye could be interesting, but there seems to be no sight of the planned pc link, which leaves me with my so far favourite of the "current cost" device, which also claims to have a greater accuracy then the "first generation" devices.
I am very happy with it... It is by far more expensive than the others but as you said, the other's do not have pc connection. That was my selling point. I ended up getting it for =A395 from nigel's eco store (No affiliation :)
I have not compared what it says to the real value. My tong tester is currently broken.
Two silly things are placement of the usb connector - you cannot stand it upright when you have the usb connected. Petty but they sould have thought about that. Another is the internal battery could have been better. It runs out rather quickly. This is not the end of the world as it normally sits on the desk connected to USB. Which brigns me to the third point - it will power itself off usb power but usb will not charge the internal battery. Again, a silly limitation. My battery lasts about 3 hours with everything on.
All these devices have the same limitation - they only measure the current draw. In order to estimate the power consumption (which is what you're interested in), they have to guess the mains voltage and the power factor.
That's a significant difference from the power meters built in to 13A plug/socket cases. These can measure the instantaeous voltage and current, and accurately calculate power (and power factor).
The CurrentCost is great. You can buy a cable to connect it to a PC, CurrentCost haven't released the software yet, but various hobbyists have written and released software. The interface is simple, so the DIY route is quite feasible, eg.
I have an OWL unit (around £40) and I bet my usage of it is fairly typical.
Buy the device and spend 10 minutes reading the instructions and installing it.
Spend another 10 minutes switching appliances on and off to see how the readings change.
Spend the next 24hours thinking 'what the hell is using 15p of electricity per hour' and ' I didn't realise that the tumble dryer was as much as 50p hour' etc.
Spend another few hours installing more low energy light bulbs, unplugging everything that doesn't need to be plugged in and installing remote controlled mains switches to turn off the stack of audio/tv equipment when not in use. Question why the battery charger for your cordless drill runs so hot after the batteries have charged.
A few hours later the 'normal' consumption has dropped by 15/25%. (and a month later the consumption is still at the same lower level)
Not once did I question the accuracy of the power measurement as I was comparing the ratios between high and lower usage. It doesn't really matter if the 10p per hour was actually 12p per hour. What matters is reducing the consumption to 5/6p per hour.
After a week the novelty of the new toy wears off but I have installed the readout were it can be easily seen and glance at it for perhaps 15 seconds each day to check that nothing is amiss.
These devices probably do more to educate the user about electricity consumption in the first few days of ownership rather than on a long term basis.
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