Monitor power usage at home the same way you do in the Prius!

wow, $140? Just buy a Kill-A-Watt for $30:

http://www.smarthome.com/9034.html

Vince

 

Or if you're really frugal, you can learn how to read the electric meter on the side of the house.

 

Vince, as it happens I have had this computer behind a Kill-A-Watt for the last several days. They are particularly handy when deciding whether the new fridges with Energy Star labels will save big money.

One important 'KAW' limitation is the 110 v plugin design. Some 240 v appliances can be important in our energy budgets. For those I direct attention to clamp-on digital ammeters; available at the bottom end of the market from Harbor Freight Tools for $20 (among others no doubt).

Eagle, the real DIYers wil probably put inductive pickups on both legs of their 240 V service and pass the output through DATAQ interfaces into their computers!

 

Kill-A-Watt is cool, but probably not nearly as effective. It only shows you what the device plugged into it is taking, The Energy Detective remotely monitors whol-house usage.

A sensor goes in your circut breaker box, then you plug the reciever into any plug in the house, it shows you what your house is drawing at the moment, in watts and dollars/hour. The convenience of not having to plug each device in your house into it, and the instantanious feedback would undoubtedly make this a much more effective tool for moderating energy use.

Imagine if your prius only had the momentary MPG readout, without the diagram, historical averages, or consumption screen. This wouldn't help you nearly as much when it comes to conserving power, would it?

This looks like something everyone should have... and use. $140 is not cheap, but It should pay for itself if you use it as a motivator to conserve.

 

Does it show little green houses for regenerative braking, too?