Kill a Watt Power Meter

I have a quick post today to tell you about this little gadget called “Kill a Watt Power Meter”. I was given this little gizmo that I can plug in any appliances to test to see how much electricity they are using, whether they are “ON” or “OFF”.

Yes, appliances use electricity even if they are “OFF” – it’s called Vampire Power. How appropriate, right? – sucks energy when you are sleeping…..get it? Never mind…

Anyway, we always unplug our computers, chargers, TV and other electronic appliances when we go away because of this reason. We have a back up battery pack that we just turn “OFF” so we don’t have to literally unplug every appliance.

So, Kill a Watt is a nifty plug-in gadget that shows you volts, Killowatt Hour (how many kilowatt the appliance uses in one hour), time, and the actual amount that you’d have to pay. So it lets you see what your electricity bill would be like even before you get it!

Go and enter for a giveaway on Green Living Ideas. It ends this Friday night.

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rachel

I just noticed this is a fancier one than we have. I made note of how many watts each item was using. My computer uses 100 watts when idle (that includes printer, external hard drive and monitor); my husband's, 120 watts. Our TV system when idle read 30 watts and the coffee maker 1.6 watts. Now with the Smart Strip, I just hibernate my computer each night and it shuts off the printer, etc (we have a Smart Strip on husband's computer and TV system too). According to my calculations (since I have the older model of the Kill A Watt), we are saving $8 per month with my computer alone. cheers!

ecokaren

$8 a month just on yours alone? That's a lot of savings. I have a laptop and so far, it's not using up that much energy. I may have to try leaving it on for more than a few days to get a real reading. I only tried it for one night and it read "0" when it was asleep. I'll have to try it for a longer period....not that I'm complaining about "0" reading. Thanks for your info. That's a good guideline to use.

I have one of these Karen! And as soon as I saw how much power our computers & accessories were using when idle, I bought the Smart Strip power strips you mentioned in a previous post.

That's great! Do you remember how much your computer sucks energy? I have a Mac laptop and it didn't draw any electricity when it was in sleep mode. I only measured it for one night but I was wondering how could that be? What was yours? I'm going to check my TV too but I thought my laptop would take some electricity.