check out how wattson is being used to reduce energy at home!
Wattson reviewed by lowcarboneconomy.com Verdict: highly recommended
I
asked for
(and received - thanks Mum!) a Wattson
energy meter for
Christmas. It has now been connected and running for about three
months, so I
reckon it’s about time to share my experiences with it.
Firstly,
and only a little thing, I was
pretty
impressed with the packaging. DIY Kyoto (the manufacturers) are clearly
excellent designers, and it was good to see that their attention
extended this
far. The meter came in a box that didn’t have a cubic
centimetre
spare inside –
the meter, power unit, transmitter, instructions and cables simply
couldn’t
have been packed any more efficiently, and in cardboard rather than in
nasty
thermoformed plastic.
I
followed the simple instructions provided
and had
it up and running very quickly. Essentially, all one must do is install
some AA
batteries (about which more later) into a little wireless transmitter
box which
is attached to a cable clamp. The cable clamp goes around the main
electrical
supply to your house and that’s the hard part done.
The
next step is to plug the Wattson unit
to its
power supply and plug the other end of the power supply into the wall.
Finally,
simply pair the transmitter with the Wattson and hey presto! You can
see your
electricity consumption (or estimated annual cost - your choice) in
real time,
displayed in funky big numerals on the Wattson. There are LEDs in the
back of
the Wattson, and these show different colours depending on how your
current
usage compares to your average usage.
When
you’re being good, you get a
nice, relaxing blue
colour. When you’re at your average, you get a purple glow,
and
when you’re
really chewing up the Kilowatts, you are given an angry red colour.
Enough
has already been written about the
beautiful
design of the Wattson, so onto the results!
What
does having an energy meter mean to
your
lifestyle?
Having
the Wattson in our front room is an
enjoyable
experience. I find myself glancing at it as I would a clock, just to
check what
the current status is – it’s kind of reassuring to
know how
much electricity
using – after all it’s a direct correlation with
the amount
of cash you’re
burning! Definitely a lifestyle enhancement rather than a hinderance.
What
insights have I gained into my energy
consumption?
Whilst
I’ve always tried to keep an
eye on my energy
consumption, Wattson has taught me thatwhat matters isn't always what
you might
expect. For example, I often worried about the standby consumption of
my cable
modem, cable TV box, wireless router, phone chargers, etc. Turns out
that what
was really chewing up the juice was our microwave. 70 Watts on standby,
just to
tell the time on it’s little digital display. In contrast,
ALL of
my various
other standby devices added up to under 40W.
After
being used to seeing Wattson hover
between the
200 – 300W mark, it was a real shock to walk into the front
room
one day and
see 10,000W on the display, and an especially vivid red colour being
displayed.
That’s what a 10KW electric shower looks like in terms of
electricity consumption!
I’ve had similar experiences when various of our other
appliances
have been on
(hoover, washing machine, oven, etc), but that shower definitely takes
the
biscuit.
I’ve
found that after turning off
everything that I
can think of, I still have about 175W consumption. I can only put this
down to
the central heating controller and the fridge/freezer, but to test
thoroughly I
need to turn off the circuit breakers systematically and isolate the
consumption.
Has
it helped reduce my consumption?
Definitely.
Although I haven’t yet
quantified the
reduction, simply turning the microwave off at the wall except when
it’s in use
has made a significant difference to our general standby consumption. I
have an
extensive hunt for phantom power users planned, and when I find the
culprits, I
will try to post some more numbers.
Is
it worth the investment?
100%
- you remember that 70W the microwave
was using
on standby? That equates to about £75/year. Combine that with
the
other savings
we’ve made in terms of remembering to turn the lights off and
I
think we’ll
have recouped the cost of the unit within the first year.
I
think my only real criticism of Wattson
is that the
transmitter box is supplied with regular, disposable batteries instead
of
rechargeables. I know it's probably uneconomical and impractical to
supply
rechargeables with every unit (many people won't have a battery
recharger, it's
probably harder to supply them fully charged, etc), but it still felt a
bit
wrong knowing that I was going to have to throw the batteries away in
the name
of saving energy.
Verdict:
Highly Recommended!
Disclaimer
- I work for
LowCarbonEconomy.com.
Although DIY Kyoto/Wattson are not currently clients, we hope they will
become
clients in the future. However, this is a genuine review based on my
own
experience and is submitted as such. There are other energy meters
available,
and I also have a Current Cost meter that I intend to install in our
office and
review in due course.
Wattson 5 START REVIEW AT DIGITAL REVIEWS
Watts
in a name? Well, that must have
something to do with electricity, doesn't it?
It's
pretty elementary as Sherlock Holmes would say to his inquisitive
offsider,
Watson.
I
love
the name that DIY Kyoto has given to this energy monitoring
device.
Do
It
Yourself Kyoto is also pretty indicative of the type of company behind
this.
So
let's
see what the Wattson is capable of telling us apart from all the pretty
colours
and numbers.
If
you
have been reading DigitalReviews.net from way back you will know that
we have a
passion for being able to monitor our energy use. See for
instance the
review we did on the Kill-a-Watt Energy Monitor a few years
ago.
This
device was conceived to basically to monitor individual
appliances. The Wattson
however will monitor your total electricity use and displays it on a
cool
looking device.
And
this
is probably the whole point of the Wattson: the device is so
good-looking with
its enigmatic glowing colours that emanate from it and with big red
numbers
displayed on the top that it has to be a talking point in your family
and with
friends that visit you. Which directs you to the energy
consumption at
that very moment. Do you really need to have all these lights
switched
on? Particularly when the Wattson is glowing red-hot,
indicating
pretty
heavy electricity consumption, see what you can switch off.
Mind
you, the Wattson itself does use some electricity as you may
suspect.
Admittedly, it's only some 5 Watts but still, you would not want it
wind
powered, would you? The other, not so tree-hugging aspect, is
that
the
wireless box that clips on to the main electricity cable, also uses
electricity
in the form of four AA batteries. They last only six months
on
average
even though you can set the device to transmit data less frequently so
that you
can stretch out this time to about 12 months. I just wonder
if it
would
have been possible to use induction to power the wireless
box? It
may not
generate enough power as it has to transmit data over some 100
meters. If
there are any obstacles, like walls, in between than this is may be
reduced to
30 meters.
Installation
It's
pretty straightforward and relatively simple to install a Wattson. The
manual
(on recycled paper, of course) is a pleasure to read. Then it's a
matter of
clipping something around one of the main electricity cables in your
meter
box...
That
is,
if you can see one. In my case the electricity box on the
house
was so
neatly organised with all the main cables tucked away behind a panel,
that I
was not game to discover any further. However, we also have a
main panel
located about 60 m from the house. You can see from the
picture
that it
was not quite that easy. I had to gingerly grapple the only
cable
that I
could see which had a bit of slack.
There
is
another complication with the type of setup that I have here at
home. We
have a so-called Smartmeter which has different tariffs according to
the time
of day. The idea behind this Smartmeter is of course to
encourage
electricity consumption outside of the peak times which the company
stimulated
by lower tariffs. Well, that lasted a few years until those
tariffs have
been jacked up as well...
So
the
Wattson will not correctly indicate the real cost as we have four
different
tariffs instead of one! However, you can still get a fairly
accurate
reading of the total kilowatts that are being consumed. I
have
always
been doing that myself anyway on the first of every month. I
have
an
historical record going back many years as we have to read the meters
ourselves
and send the readings to the electricity company every couple of months.
The
Wattson will help you do this monitoring for up to 60 days through the
Holmes
software which you can use to tweak the numbers. The software
can
be
downloaded for the DIYKyoto site. If using too much
electricity
is an
(ecological) crime, then Holmes is the ideal partner in crime detection!
Using
and Reducing
So
once
the wireless transmitter has been installed in the meter box it's time
to
plug-in the main display unit. There's only one button on the
device and
that is a toggle switch to display both the colours and the numbers,
numbers or
colours only and a night mode. Cool blue is good, hot red is
bad
for your
wallet. I was surprised to see that with only my desktop
plugged
in
(sure, it's a big one) the unit already displayed an indigo colour.
Initially
I had the unit installed in the kitchen, being closest to the wireless
transmitter. Later on I unplugged it and walked around the
house
with it
to see how much range I could get out of it. Yes, it made it
to
the
lounge and to my office but at other locations I got the message Out of
Range
on the display. It's good to see that this unit also has
rechargeable
batteries even though they last only a few hours or so. It is
handy to
take it with you to different locations in the house to see the
immediate
effect on the unit as you switch on the big fellas like the heaters,
dishwashers and washing machines.
The
Wattson displays the cost in British pounds but the currency can be
changed
with the software. I think that it's an effective deterrent
to
using lots
of electricity when the Wattson displays the total cost of what you are
using
currently if you left it on for a whole year!
And
very
interesting is also that the Wattson makes use of tilt
technology. By
tilting the Wattson the unit of measurement changes from Watts to
pounds per
year (this is currently set at 30 pence per kilowatt hour)
Deduction
The
Wattson from DIY Kyoto costs about £150 which translates into
just under $300
US. That's not inexpensive and there are a few cheaper
alternatives on
the market, particularly in the UK. The Wattson though is the
Rolls-Royce
where you do pay for a prestigious display. Personally, I like
it
very
much and not just because of its good looks. Saving
electricity
is a
family affair: I cannot be the policeman to switch off the devices in
the house
after everyone else. Everybody needs to be convinced about it
and
the
Wattson makes it painfully clear to everybody in the lounge when things
are
left switched on unnecessarily. There is the danger that, for
instance in
winter time when a lot of heating is required, people get used to
seeing red...
The Wattson can also make it very clear that something has been left on inadvertently and as such can really make a difference in your wallet. Highly recommended.