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I used one of these expecting those wall warts and other power adapters to be taking all my excess energy, but I couldn't find one that even was 1 watt. However, my file server computer was 250W and my theater computer was 150 Watts. This accounts for 3500 kWh per year, at 12 cents, that's $420 / year! Those online storage solutions are looking a bit better for $100/yr.
I bought one of these, they work well for their purpose. Found out my microwave uses 6 watts when not in use. Fun to go around and see whats using up your energy costs.
Would be interesting to use. We have a lot of high powered lights and desktops here, and I bet all that is really killing our bill.
I use this to monitor my DirecTV box and found out that it uses the same power no matter it is on or off.... The engine keep running. Now I don't feel guilty by leaving it on 24 hrs a day!
It seems unable to accurately measure very low wattage devices like wall warts, computers on S5 (soft-off) mode, etc. A wall wart that isn't powering anything may indeed be around 1W or less in reality, but you can guesstimate others' real usage powering something using math instead...
Unregulated types of wall warts are generally about 60% efficient, switching type around 85%. These figures are for one with 12VDC output, AC output types will be a little more efficient but lower DC voltage types will be a little less efficient, roughly +-10% difference from those common in consumer electronics, I mean voltage ranges usually used which are seldom 3.3V, usually 5V or higher.
With a multimeter measure the current consumption of the powered device between the wart plug and the device power socket, then repeat the test measuring voltage at that power level.
For example if your device uses an unregulated wart and measures 200mA @ 12.4V, it would be 0.3 * 12.4 / 0.6 = 4.1W
i bought one of these intending to revolutionize my life. i already unplug certain items when i leave the home, and wanted to go a step further, AND help my friends out with the same.
if you already unplug the obvious items like computers and microwaves, don't bother with this. trying to save pennies by unplugging lamps and things that barely even register with this is a waste of time. either that or my sockets all leak power even when items aren't plugged in???
Computers and microwaves aren't really obvious items, they usually don't consume enough power in soft-off mode to bother unplugging... just the extra time you have the lights on in a room to plug and unplug them can largely negate the savings, as well as the time to order new batteries for my motherboard since it will drain much faster with the system unplugged often.
In other words, A/C, refrigerator, etc (things that by design need to be kept plugged in to work properly at their intended purpose) consumption pretty much swamps any difference from a microwave or PC.