P3 International P4480 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor with Electronic Graphic Timer

P3 International P4480 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor with Electronic Graphic Timer List Price: $79.95 Sale Price: Too low to display Average Rating:

Description

A smart addition to any home, this unique timer allows for total control over electricity usage, even when out of town on business or away on vacation. The handy gadget reads energy consumption by the kilowatt-hour and calculates electricity expenses by the day, week, month, or year. It can also be used to turn household appliances on and off, with seven different combinations for each day of the week and up to 96 programmable on/off settings per day. Connect it to a lamp with random on/off times to make an empty house look occupied, or attach it to valuable appliances--its built-in surge protector guards against voltage spikes. The graphic timer can monitor two tasks at once and measures approximately 5 by 3 by 2 inches.

Features

• Graphic timer reads energy consumption by the kilowatt-hour
• Calculates electricity expenses by the day, week, month, or year
• Can turn appliances on and off; 96 programmable on/off settings per day
• Built-in surge protector guards against voltage spikes; monitors 2 tasks at a time
• Measures approximately 5 by 3 by 2 inches

Reviews

I had the original Kill a watt and enjoyed it very much. I was excited for this one because of all of its bells and whistles. Unfortunately the safety feature is a bit annoying. The product is rated for 15 amps, as are all of them. But this one has a safety feature that will shut the whole thing down if you exceed the 15 amps. Which I guess keeps me safe but there are a lot of things that suck a lot of power that, especially on start up, will suck more than 15 amps for a short period of time. This thing freaks, shuts down and just sits there beeping at you. I never got past this before I sent it back so I did not try the programming features. I would not recommend this one unless you are only interested in "vampire" power.

In the manual mode it works great, but when I tried to program it to use as a timer I could never get it to come on even after numerous attempts.

Does what it advertises to do. Hard to setup. Easy to misconfigure if you don't notice that you are in the wrong mode.

This unit has 3 functions that people do not really understand surge protection, timer and measure what you spend on electrical items. The Surge Protector- most surge protectors protect only for high vol but this one protects against high and low. This fully loaded surge protector doesn't just guard your electrical devices from voltage spikes. It also provides protection against over current, over voltage, and under voltage delivering clean safe power to your expensive equipment. Unlike other timers, the Graphic Timer is not limited to one day of programming--the unit allows unique programs for each of the 7 days of the week. Measurements and programming are stored in memory and retained during power outages. A backup battery allows armchair programming before you even plug it in. Lastly, you can measure what you spend on your electrical items. The power meter once connected to your appliance will assess how efficient they really are. The Large LCD display will count consumption by the Kilowatt-hour, same as your local utility.

A lot of the reviews here are for the P3 International P4460 Kill-A-Watt Monitor. I purchased the P4480 on a gold box special and am writing this review under the P4480's review page. I received the P4480 and opened the package and the first thing that I noticed is that it has a battery door. I opened it and saw that it takes 3xAAA batteries. These allow you to program and review the unit with it being unplugged from the wall. The backlight is orange and bright. It can be set as a night light to come on during the evening hours. The unit needs to be set with the correct time and day before it will function correctly. This model is not exactly what I was expecting. I thought it would be a kill-a-watt monitor with all the functions of analyzing your power consumption of an appliance or device. It turns out that it is mainly an advanced on/off timer that happens to measure voltage, amperage, and watts too. You push the volts or amps or watts buttons to scroll between measuring those values respectively. You can not enter your utilities companies KWh pricing and have it calculate your daily, weekly or yearly spending. It doesn't have a high and low points review or and kind of data logging. It only provided real time feedback of current energy conditions. This is not very helpful in analyzing the overall cumulative energy use of something. I recently had a lightening strike and my electrical panel needed changing out according to my electrician. The lights would dim and brighten depending on what appliances would turn on and off (ie. the A/C unit). I was interested to use the P4480 to test amps and voltages of things as the fluctuations occurred until my electrician could get out and change out the panel. It was helpful for this, although I found using my electrical multimeter better for doing the same thing I really don't need an on/off timer that cost this much. The P4480 does provide amps/watts readings which my multimeter cannot provide although you can purchase other multimeters to measure this inexpensively. I will be returning this and purchasing a different model kill-a-watt monitor as I would like analyze my power usage for devices around my home. This one just doesn't do it. The description on Amazon is a little bit misleading and the reviews under this item are not just for the P4480 which is also misleading as the P4480 doesn't have the same features as the other models.