Watts Up Pro Electricity Consumption Meter

This review is for the "Watts Up? Pro" meter.PROS:------(1)Excellent Current Wattage, Cumulative Watt Hours, and Max/Min Watts measurement EVEN AT LOW WATTAGE (<5w, <10w) when Amp measurement error increases.Wattage is furthermore measured 2,500 times per second regardless of how frequently you choose to log. Thus Cumulative Watt Hours and Max/Min Watts figures are going to be fairly accurate regardless of your log frequency.(2)The ability to position the meter at a COMFORTABLE READ POSITION and fit the plug into tight spots is very nice.(3)It has a measurement available called POWER CYCLE which counts up each time power is lost/regained, which of course if not accounted for could greatly affect accuracy.(4)It automatically puts the information into its own built in spreadsheet making my CUT AND PASTE INTO EXCEL easy. Of course it creates a delimited text file for import, too.(5)Found the meter EASY TO LEARN AND USE, and the software took at most 5-10 minutes to learn.(6)Most expected values tracked, though most folks will perhaps be mostly interested in:- Cumulative Watt Hours- Current Watts- Power Cycle (which tracks when power went off during measurement).Others measures: Min/Max Watts, Power Factor, Volt Amp (apparent PWR), Avg Mthly Kwh, Elapsed Time, Duty Cycle, Frequency (Hz), Cumulative Cost, Avg Mthly $, Line Voltage, Min/Max Volts, Current Amps, Min/Max Amps.CONS/SUGGESTIONS:--------------------- Please add a built-in clock like most other data loggers. Right now you note down the start or end time of the sampling and enter it in the program, or just put it into your spreadsheet as I do, however, a product like this should have a built-in clock to date/time tag the log. I will raise it to 5 stars when time logging is added.- More records storage would be nice. I'd like to sample with 10 second frequency for over a week, for example.TECH SUPPORT:---------------I called twice with a few questions, their tech support was both FRIENDLY and TECHNICALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE.NOTES:-------- To increase the logging points and thus the time it has to log, reduce the variety of measured values (for example, to just Cumulative Watt Hours, Current Watts, and Power Cycle).- If you didn't note it from above, the Current Watts is an instantaneous measure, it isn't using the 2,500 samples/sec data that the cumulative watts and min/max watts are using.GET TO KNOW THE OTHERWATTS PRO METERS:-------------------------I suggest reviewing all models of the Watts Up line-up on their website before choosing a model. The models are:- Watts Up?- Watts Up? Pro- Watts Up? Pro ES- Watts Up? .NetI think of the "Pro" version as a sweet spot in the line-up. There are 4 models (listed above), 1 below it and 2 above it feature-wise. I would assume anyone interested in this kind of product would want at least the "Pro"'s features.If you expect to measure power that is either (A) sourced from an inverter sometimes or (B) affected by the source or environment by extreme levels of line noise, then you probably want the ".Net" model version (or for the latter buy a line filter). It has more shielding, more strategic separation of components, etc. If you have a problem with either case you will know right away as the data will go bonkers in an obvious way, I'm told.The "Pro ES" and ".Net" models store 4x the records of a "Pro" (120,000 vs. 30,000). For example, if you wanted to only track Cumulative Watt Hours, Current Watts, and Power Cycle then you can save 40,000 data points (120,000/3). With 1,440 mins and 86,400 secs in a day, you can determine which you need. Remember that the Cumulative Watt Hours and Min/Max Watts calculation is always based on the 2,500 samples/sec no matter the logging frequency.SUMMARY:----------Highly recommend these meters if they meet your needs.

The Watts Up power meter is a very cool device. I got the Pro version that has a USB interface for downloading the logged data to a PC. The meter seems to work just fine, with no problems. There are only two buttons, so it's not so obvious how to use it. But after reading the manual, it was easy to cycle the display through all the measurements and make sense of them. There are also a couple of values that you can set using the buttons (the price you pay per kwh in tenths of a cent, and a duty-cycle value, see below for more information).There are many measurements that the meter can report: current wattage being consumed, minimum wattage (usually zero, for a load that cycles on and off), maximum wattage (it can catch surges when a device with a motor turns on), power factor (only useful for nerds), volt-amps (likewise), accumulated watt-hrs since being reset (switches to kwh as the value increases), estimated monthly kwh (by extrapolating the accumulated value), accumulated time the meter has been plugged in (can go for many months), duty cycle (the percentage of time the load exceeds a programmable minimum, like to measure how often the refrigerator is running, or how much TV you watch), exact line frequency in tenths of a hertz, accumulated power cost since being reset (based on a kwh cost that you can set, this settable value is preserved even after unplugging the unit), estimated monthly cost (by extrapolating the accumulated value), current voltage (in tenths of a volt), maximum voltage (I saw a 132.6 volt surge when power failed during an ice storm), minimum voltage (momentarily 60.8 volts during same storm, before power failed), present amperage, minimum amperage, maximum amperage (not terribly interesting to me). It also counts how many times power was cycled (either by unplugging the meter or from power failure) but this value can only be seen in the downloaded data, not on the LCD screen.The min/max and accumulated values can be individually reset by holding down a button, but they all reset if power fails or you unplug the meter. The data in the logging memory can be reset by pressing a button at power up, but otherwise is preserved if power fails or the unit is unplugged. You can also reset the logging memory using the logging program on your computer.The Pro version logs all the measurements in internal memory, and it has a USB interface so you can download the data to your PC. You first have to download the data capture program from their website, which installed easily on my old XP system. The program is somewhat complicated, and it looks like it was designed by nerds for nerds (I'm a nerd, so that's OK). All program features and commands are exhaustively documented in the standard Windows help pages that come with the program. The meter's default data logging interval is a little weird. The longer you let the meter log data, the farther apart the logged readings are, in time. It starts out at 1 second per logged reading, but once the internal logging memory fills, it automatically switches to every 2 seconds, but overwrites every other entry until full again. Then it doubles the interval and overwrites alternate entries, until full, ad infinitum. The goal of this technique is to keep the oldest data as well as the newest data, but to make the sample intervals farther apart since the memory size is fixed. So if you let it log data for a few days, the samples can be half a minute apart, which is not very precise. The good thing is that you can use the PC program to configure the meter to use a fixed logging interval (basically any value down to one second), plus you can tell the meter not to log certain measurements that might not be of interest to you (like volt-amps, or min watts which is usually zero) which increases the logging time before memory fills. All in all, the logging program is very flexible and powerful, both for examining the data and for configuring the meter's logging capability - I think they have it all covered pretty thoroughly.I went around the house and measured everything, and it was pretty interesting. Most of the modern electronic devices (like the TV, Blu-Ray player, computer printer) were pretty smart and had extremely low phantom power use (basically zero instantaneous watts, though the meter might have accumulated a tiny consumption reading if I had left it in the circuit for days). The cordless phone base station was 1.0 watts, and each handset was 1.1 watts in the charger, the microwave (clock only) was 2.3 watts, a very old clock radio was 2.0 watts (radio off, goes up to 2.2 watts with radio on), a late-model clock radio was better (0.0 watts backlight off, 0.2 watts backlight medium, 0.5 watts backlight high, 0.9 watts backlight high and radio on). But the old Bose Wave Radio was a pig (7.3 watts clock only, about 14 watts with the radio on). Surprisingly, my late-model refrigerator was pretty efficient, 96 watts compressor running (but 477 watts during a defrost cycle), with an estimated $3.50 monthly cost, after several days of accumulating data. I really wanted to figure out how much power my computer system used (an old but powerful Dell XP desktop with 23" LCD monitor). I frequently step away from the computer, sometimes for hours, and I felt guilty about leaving it powered on and wasting electricity. I measured power consumption every which way, and here's an interesting tidbit: Running Solitaire but otherwise idle, the computer system used 175 watts. If I rapidly drag the Solitaire window around the screen using the mouse, power goes up to 185 watts. If the Solitaire window frequently goes off the bottom of the screen as I rapidly drag it around, power goes up to 190 watts. I attribute this to the processor requiring more power when things are active, compared to "idle" when it is able to conserve a little power somehow. Anyway, my computer system costs me about two and a quarter cents per hour to run, at 12.8 cents/kwh here in rural Virginia, which is not too bad. Even if I leave the computer on 12 hours a day, it only costs me $8.29 per month, which is significant but not outrageous. Just the same, I have everything plugged into the switched side of the UPS so it's all shut off when I turn the UPS off (the UPS keeps trickle charging, 1.2 watts usage).The biggest benefit of having this meter is just becoming aware of electricity usage and cost, in all the gory details, so you can make informed decisions about your usage. To that end, this meter is a great tool.

Received defective product. the mode button was stuck. Industrial Design of this product was poorly done. quality of the controls are what you might expect on a child's toy not a 120.00 piece of test equipment. i wouldn't purchase another product from this company. i feel terrible having to be so negative considering i'm an electrical engineer myself. my expectation is that the the underlying electrical/software design is probably great (going by others comments) but the fool who was responsible for the packaging should be fired. if it was greedy management that thought they were going to make a few more pennies on this i hate to inform them that they are SOOOO wrong.As a complement to Amazon, i was able to send this back to Amazon directly even though the purchase was from a third party. i was reimbursed promptly. very convenient return methods and the first time i had to return something to Amazon.