An All-in-one Surge Protector and Watt Monitor

P3 International P4320 Kill-A-Watt Power Strip List Price: $99.95 Sale Price: Too low to display Average Rating:

Description

Now you can protect your valuable electronics and find out what they are actually costing you. Simply connect these appliances into the P3 International P4320 Kill-A-Watt power strip, and it will assess how efficient they are while the built-in surge protection keeps them safe. Advanced features such as over current, over voltage, and no load detection provide clean, safe power to your expensive equipment. Check the quality of your power by monitoring voltage, line frequency, amperage, kilowatt hours, current leakage and more. Now you'll know how much power your entire computer or home theater system is using. With the innovative Kill A Watt power strip you'll have peace of mind in more ways than one.

Features

• Advanced Surge Protection Circuitry
• Soft Power-Up
• Displays Max/Min Volts, Amps, Watts, PF, & Leakage Current
• 6 Foot Cord with Low Profile Plug
• Light-Up Power Switch with Backlit LCD Display

Reviews

DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT! I had purchased my first unit and it dies less than 7 days later. It appears that when the power is disrupted to the unit it shut downs. Pressing the rest button does nothing. I ordered a second unit and sent the first one back. We had a major snow storm on the east coast and the lights went out. The unit never came back on again. This time the unit was 4 days old. I have the Kill A WATT EZ Plugged with a power strip and have never had a problem. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

This works as advertised. I have had problems with it shutting off after a while when not in use. This can be annoying when I want to turn something on that uses this and I have to go power the power strip back up before doing so. This doesn't go well with something that is on a timer and turns on and off automatically. It seems relatively accurate at monitoring power. It would be nice if it could do the calculations for you for cost, but I guess you have to buy something more expensive to get that capability. Overall, it's a good investment for tracking power usage and understanding better what is using power even when not in use. I found out that my electric woodburning stove draws power even when I don't use it. As a season item, I found out that I can save power, and money, during the summer by unplugging it. That alone will pay for the power strip over time.

I bought the P4320 Kill W Watt Power strip on 27 January 2009. On 27 October 2009 it will not stay "on", and drops off. It pops a relay and gives the message "abnormal voltage." The voltage at all recepticals in my house measure 117v. This is not abnormal. Unfortunately, the warranty for the device is only six months. The P4320 was doing the "drop out" thing during the summer intermittently. I wonder if I had acted upon it if I could have caught it under warranty. In addition, I did not find a single device that would be better to put off of standby. At $70, it would take about forty years to recover the cost of the P4320. The experiment was fun. But the parasitic current issue is way, way overplayed.

Although the product description, in a strictly technical sense, contains an error in that it cannot truly measure efficiency of any appliance connected to it, it is extremely useful to determine the cost of operating any appliance or group of appliances...it provides all info, & actually more, than the average consumer might use (i.e. power factor, which is NOT a measure of efficiency). Any appliance with a remote control consumes power in its "standby" mode, i.e. waiting to be turned "on" either by its remote control unit or its built-in "on" button/switch. As it is "waiting," it is consuming a small amount of power. For a remote-controlled home theater system, that could include a TV, audio-video receiver, cable box, CD player, DVD player, etc., etc.. Typically these are all plugged into a surge-protector power strip (or at least should be) & all consume some amount of power even when "off," i.e. in "standby." Although it's not much, in my case it comes to about $50/yr. That, of course, doesn't include all the other household items which can consume power constantly, clocks, computers, battery chargers, cell phone chargers, etc, & which the Kill A Watt PS can also independently measure. The cost of operation is very easy to determine: Just plug your surge-protector power strip (or device or devices) into the Kill A Watt PS (for a month, for example) & it continuously records the power consumed in "standby" of everything connected, as well as, power used during normal operation. To determine the cost, check your utility bill to get the cost of power for the month...then just take the total cost & divide it by the total kWh on that bill to get the price per kWh for that month. That number (price per kWh) can be multiplied by the kWh that the Kill A Watt PS measures & the total is the cost for the elapsed time (number of hours) that is indicated on the Kill A Watt PS. If it was plugged in for a month (24 hrs times 30 days=720 hrs ), just multiply the cost by 12 for the annual cost. Really pretty easy... you will probably be amazed at how much power can be used just watching a home theater system. By the way, raising the volume, obviously uses more power! You can watch that happen with the Kill A Watt PS. Although the product has some surge protection, I found its surge-protection energy rating to be considerably lower than I personally would feel comfortable with to protect my home theater system, so I don't use it for that purpose. One note of information: When you unplug some appliances with built-in clocks, it is likely that the clock will have to be reset when plugged back in. All-in-all I found this product extremely useful & it, when used according to its manual, performs simply, quickly, & safely, as advertised. BTW, Amazon had the best price by far (Aug 2009)!

Dead On Arrival. Does not power up and all sockets in power strip are dead. Further, the clam shell packaging the unit arrived in was already opened at one end.