Product Description

Includes Power Monitor - EM100B, Cordless In-home Display Unit, Weatherproof Electricity Meter Sensor, Alignment Guide & Instruction Manual

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #607 in Home Improvement
• Brand: Black & Decker
• Model: EM100B
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 4.30" h x 8.40" w x 8.70" l, 1.30 pounds

Features

• Energy consumption monitor easily tracks energy usage minute by minute
• Completely wireless system allows for easy installation and use
• Displays energy use in kilowatts and dollars
• Includes wireless, weatherproof sensor and indoor monitor
• Requires 4 AA batteries; covered by 2-year warranty

Amazon.com Product Description
Go green and save money on energy costs with the Black & Decker EM100B Energy Saver Series Power Monitor. This compact, easy-to-install device lets you track the amount of electricity that your household uses--and the costs of that usage--in real time. This monitor can help you reduce your energy consumption and decrease your monthly bills while helping the environment.

The Energy Saver Series EM100B Power Monitor: Displays electricity use in your home, minute by minute, in dollars or kW Shows month-to-date bill and predicted monthly bill Also shows day, time, and outside temperature Helps households stick to their energy budgets and save money

The Energy Saver Series Power Monitor is easy to install and easy to use. View full diagram.

Click to view the power monitor compatibility guide.

Simple Installation: No Wiring Required
Getting started is as easy as mounting the sensor to your outdoor electric meter, aligning it, and synchronizing the sensor with the cordless monitor. Once this is done, you can track real-time usage from a convenient, indoor location. The results are immediately available and can help you to make smart energy-consumption choices. You'll quickly discover that doing the little things really does add up to big savings.

The monitor's easy-to-read digital display shows your current energy usage in dollars, so you don't have to perform tricky calculations to understand what the readings mean. It also shows you the outdoor temperature, so you can account for heat used on cold mornings, and it displays your month-to-date usage along with an estimate for your upcoming bill. This advanced feature can work with any type of billing rate, including flat rate billing, separate peak and off-peak rates, or tiered billing structures.

Track Little Changes that Become Big Savings
A convenient appliance mode feature allows you to track minute-to-minute changes in electric consumption as major appliances are turned on and off, so you can see where your money is going. This makes it easy for you to decide, for instance, which electrical appliances and accessories are really worth their cost, and which of your older appliances are costing you more money than they're worth. You can also quickly tell how much you save by switching to compact florescent light bulbs or instituting other conservation measures in your home.

Once you have the Energy Saver Series Power Monitor set up, you'll be surprised how quickly the everyday choices you make in your electrical consumption add up. In fact, lifestyle changes based on the information your family gets from this monitor can save you up to 20 percent a month on your electric bills.

Enjoy Durability and Widespread Compatibility
The weatherproof sensor at the heart of this system is designed to handle tough winters, humid summers, and everything in between, so you can rely on it for year-round accurate performance.

This power monitor is designed to work with 90 percent of current electricity meters, including those with visible rotating wheels, those with single optical ports, and some models with dual optical ports.

What's in the Box
Cordless monitor station, weatherproof sensor, one shim, and one alignment guide.

Families that use the Power Monitor to change their behavior and save energy can reduce their electricity bill by up to 20 percent.

Amazon.com
Help your family stick to your energy budget with the Black & Decker EM100B Energy Saver Series Power Monitor. This convenient, easy-to-use energy monitor allows you to easily, accurately track your energy use, minute by minute, so you can meet your energy usage goals--whether you're attempting a more "green" lifestyle, you want to reduce your bills, or both. Not only does the monitor display your energy consumption in kilowatts, it translate your energy use into dollars, helping you easily see, minute, by minute how much your energy consumption is costing you. The monitor projects your monthly bill to help you stay within your means, and it also includes an "Appliance Mode," which isolates the energy consumption of individual electrical devices or appliances, helping you monitor your energy use as specifically as possible. The Energy Saver monitor couldn't be easier to use. The completely wireless system includes a weatherproof sensor that easily attaches to your outside electricity meter--it's designed to work with most meters. The sensor transmits information to the wireless in-home display unit, which you can read inside, comfortably and conveniently. The system requires four AA batteries, and it's covered by a 2-year warranty.

From the Manufacturer
This easy-to-use device tells a homeowner, in real-time, how much electricity they use, and the cost in dollars and cents in order to actively and intelligently control energy consumption. The Energy Saver Series helps consumers know more, use less and save money, by making it easier than ever to track and control electricity expenditures in a home. Rather than requiring major lifestyle changes, the Energy Saver provides consumers with the right tool to cut down on power consumption with little effort, making spending less on energy an achievable, measurable reality. Using the EM100B Power Monitor couldn't be simpler. A wireless sensor attaches on the electricity meter outside a home--no wiring or electrician required. This sensor monitors the rate electricity is consumed, and transmits this information to the handheld display monitor inside your home. Program basic information from your electric bill regarding cost-per-kilowatt-hour and your billing plan (flat rate, peak/off-peak, or tiered) into your Power Monitor. Press the sync button and immediately receive information on: 1) How much electricity is being used in real-time (in kW or $/hr) 2) Month-to-date costs 3) Estimated bill at the end of the month 4) Outside temperature (or temperature wherever the sensor is). Armed with this information, homeowners can quickly see how much energy they use and when. As they turn major appliances and groups of lights on and off, they can see the minute-by-minute changes in their consumption. The Power Monitor's Appliance feature even isolates the cost of each individual appliance as it is turned on. Considering the average household's monthly electric bill is more than $105 and quickly rising, using the Power Monitor to reduce electricity consumption by 20% would shave more than $20 a month off that bill. In just five months, the Power Monitor will pay for itself and save money in the years to come.

Customer Reviews

More power!
Now this is a really interesting product. I have several individual energy monitors that will tell me how much power the device (or several devices on a power strip) are using. But, the real heavy-hitters aren't small appliances, they are the large ones like central air conditioning and electric clothes dryers. Plus, what are all those lights I tend to leave on costing me? I just can't tell that from an individual meter, and my power bill includes everything in the house, so I can't narrow it down.

I investigated various solutions for monitoring how much power my home is using. There are a couple of them out there. They are pretty expensive (hundreds of dollars), and they need to be installed by an electrician (there's a pretty big risk of death if you don't know what you are doing).

When this one came along I was interested, but I figured it would be pretty similar to the other ones. Luckily, it differs in two important respects. It is easy to install, and it is much cheaper. Installation consists of putting a battery-powered transmitter on the outside meter. The meter doesn't need to be opened, and it isn't directly attached, so you won't need an electrician. On my meter, which is electronic, it interfaces with it by blinking a light into a little port that is on the meter and reading the response. It works with mechanical meters as well, by sensing the little wheel turning inside the meter. I suspect this is more accurate than the type that connects directly to the power lines, as the meter is what the power company is basing your consumption and cost. I also like the fact that I can't die from attaching it. The downside is that it has a battery that needs regular replacement. The manufacturer recommends lithium AAs for the outside sensor, and those aren't cheap. I'm not sure how long it lasts, but I have several wireless outdoor temperature sensors that go at least a year on a set of standard alkaline batteries, so if it lasts a couple of years on lithiums I'll be happy. Still, it would have been nice of them to throw a set of batteries in the box, even if they had to raise the price a bit to do so.

The display unit, which goes inside and gets information from the wireless sender unit outside on the power meter, is very clear and easy to use. It displays the current energy use along with the month to date cost (you tell it what your power rate is during setup), along with the outside temperature. The amount of money the power is costing is a lot more useful than how many kilowatts are being used, so I was pleased to see that it does the calculation for me. The only hard part here is that you have to do some math from your last bill to determine how much each kilowatt is costing you, but that wasn't especially hard to calculate. They do tell you how to do that in the instructions, but my bill didn't look much like their example so I had to puzzle it out.

One thing I really wished for is a computer interface with graphing software. I wasn't expecting it at this price point, but that would be a great feature. Nothing beats looking at a color-coded graph for seeing where your peak electrical use is happening, and what is causing it. Tie that in with outside temperature, and it is easier to determine how much power is going to the heating and cooling systems during seasonal changes. Maybe they'll release a "pro" version that has that.

Overall, this is an interesting, easy to use, and reasonably priced item. If it helps you lower your energy bill even a little bit each month, it won't be hard to justify the purchase. Plus, now I know that leaving my kitchen lights on all the time is costing me eight cents an hour!

Recommended.

Sean P. Logue, 2008

Wow what a great device for managing your power "Footprint"
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AGE43H483VMW I a very impressed with the Black and Decker Power Monitor. It is a perfect tool in helping you determine how much energy you are using each day. While I would not buy this device in order to "save" money (it will take many months for your to recoup the cost on the energy monitor) however, it is a great way to fid out how much energy your house uses.

Examlple - when my air condition comes on I see that I pull an additional 3000W which translates into about 0.20 cents per hour. Leaving my kitchen lights on is about 200W or about 2 cents an hour. The Black and Decker Power monitor makes it easy to track your energy footprint and what are your big energy items.

If you want to save "money" my suggestion is to replace your incandescent lights with flourescent (or however it is spelled) this will save you about 30%. However, if you want to find modest savings while reducing your unneeded energy consumption this is the item for you. 5 stars

PS - installation is not "Easy" but it can be done with the use of some trial-and-error... budget about an hour.

Paying By The Numbers
After viewing the product image and seeing the name, I assumed that this product was Black and Decker's take on the Kill A Watt. The Kill A Watt, by P3 International, is a popular device used to measure the energy consumption of a single device. To use it, a device is simply plugged into it, while it is plugged into the wall. The reason I explain this is because, while my initial assumption was incorrect, these products both compete and bolster each other in ways I will explain below.

The Black and Decker Energy Power Monitor is a very interesting device. It consists of an outdoor unit, which attaches to an electric meter, and an indoor unit, which displays and interprets data collected by the outdoor unit. The reviews here seem to conflict about the ease of installation of the outdoor unit. My experience was extremely positive. All I had to do was extend the sensor by pulling a lever and tighten it onto the the electric meter's glass dome with a flathead screwdriver. My electric meter is the old fashioned electromechanical (spinning disc) type, which may explain the relatively fast and painless installation. The indoor unit feels surprisingly high quality, despite being all plastic, with very durable buttons and some heft. As a bonus, they have also included an outdoor temperature reading. The display is very nice and large, but the low resolution, which is similar to a digital clock, limits the amount and type of information available.

And that is where the caveat lies for me. Given this very powerful method of reading energy use and broadcasting it long-range wirelessly, one might expect a plethora of data and the ability to monitor various aspects of energy usage over the course of weeks, months, and years. Unfortunately, that is not the case, but what is offered is the core components needed to derive that data in a simple and fun format. Two main screens can be toggled between, with one showing the energy usage in terms of cost and the other in terms of electricity used. The "Cost View" gives the estimated amount of money spent per hour, updating itself every thirty seconds. So, you might unplug an appliance and check if a substantial difference is made in the hourly cost. Monthly cost can also be estimated. There is also a "clr" button to clear all costs and find the accumulated cost since it was hit. The "Power View" essentially displays the same information, but in kilowatts rather than dollars. For example, the amount of kilowatts used in a month can be estimated.

While these tools are powerful, I found that the lack of a way to track that data over time diminished their value to some degree. I think that a simpler question is how much electricity a single device consumes, which can be used to understand if the device is worth the cost and if upgrading to a more energy efficient version would be sensible. Thankfully, the device can do just that via the "tare" button. If you use a scale to measure food, you are probably familiar with taring. In that case, you put a bowl on the scale, hit tare, and then put the food in the bowl to weigh it. By taring the bowl, you make sure that the bowl's weight is not counted, because you only want to weigh the food. In the same way, the Power Monitor's tare simply subtracts whatever energy is currently being used. So, if I wanted to see how much energy my dryer is using, I would hit tare, then turn it on. This is great, because unlike the Kill A Watt, it doesn't matter that I am measuring a 240V device. Unfortunately, any deviation in power, such as a refrigerator popping on to cool or a heating unit turning on and off, will lessen the accuracy of the reading because it was not taken into account by the tare.

So, the much less expensive Kill A Watt is superior for measurement of power used from a single 120V device. However, the standard version does not have the ability to measure some of the most power hungry devices, such as a dryer, oven, or air conditioner. That is where the Power Monitor shines. Despite my criticisms related to the lack of tracking options, which could have been simply alleviated with a computer interface and basic software, it is a very solid and valuable product that I would highly recommend. A "best of both worlds" device would consist of small Kill A Watt type devices that could be individually identified and communicate with a central hub. In this way, power usage for each member of the family could be quantified and the total energy use from all devices could be compared with the reading at the electric meter to check for energy leaks, which can also be costly and will not be revealed by either device alone. Certainly, this is far too much to ask from a device in this price range, but I look forward to future innovations from the company and applaud this solid step into the arena.