Watt's on?
It seems like an age ago now that I ordered a Wattson from DIY Kyoto. It arrived on Friday.
This is a very highly priced "limited edition" product (mine is the 89th of 250), made from translucent white acrylic and wood, and £350. This seems a huge amount, and probably is, but is slightly less painful when compared to the Electrisave, at £60-£80. The Wattson is a much more attractive unit, and also comes with a USB link so you can log and process your data yourself (although this requires the use of one of those high-power-consumption computer doodads) - a major selling point for me. Also, as well as a numeric display, there is an ambient colour indicator of how much power you are using.
The box is fairly simply made, but looks good.
The manual is large and friendly. My first hand-stitched manual.
This is the first page of the manual - great text there.
Over the years I have bought many products which came with cloths - usually screen cleaners. This is the first to come with a customised duster.
The transmitter is battery powered, which was fine, but the batteries didn't want to be in the case. This was the third attempt, when they didn't jump out.
My electricity lives in a cupboard. The clip-on unit is very easy to fit.
The Wattson unit itself is very elegant. It is made from recycled school lab benches; this is very satisfying.
In these images it's barely on - newly installed and charging itself. It works on batteries, or via DC adaptor. Now it's been on a while, it's brightly lit (4-5W of shininess). Most of the time, we get a mauve pulsing effect, and a nice cheerful red number in Pounds Per Year, or Watts.
Now, I know from my friends up at PRI that this type of clip meter is very inaccurate, but nonetheless, as a vague indicator it works well. Our readings leapt by around 2000 when we turned the tumble dryer on (or more scarily, the kettle!) and by 100W when Michael's pretty CODA display was on - clearly a powerful monitor, or perhaps they are all like that. Hmm. At least the CODA box is low power :)
We are now sitting in the growing dusk. We are watching the West Wing, on the lowest power computer in the house. We must drink our tea whilst it is hot, since it used a lot of power to make, and will retire as soon as it gets dark...
This is a very highly priced "limited edition" product (mine is the 89th of 250), made from translucent white acrylic and wood, and £350. This seems a huge amount, and probably is, but is slightly less painful when compared to the Electrisave, at £60-£80. The Wattson is a much more attractive unit, and also comes with a USB link so you can log and process your data yourself (although this requires the use of one of those high-power-consumption computer doodads) - a major selling point for me. Also, as well as a numeric display, there is an ambient colour indicator of how much power you are using.
The box is fairly simply made, but looks good.
The manual is large and friendly. My first hand-stitched manual.
This is the first page of the manual - great text there.
Over the years I have bought many products which came with cloths - usually screen cleaners. This is the first to come with a customised duster.
The transmitter is battery powered, which was fine, but the batteries didn't want to be in the case. This was the third attempt, when they didn't jump out.
My electricity lives in a cupboard. The clip-on unit is very easy to fit.
The Wattson unit itself is very elegant. It is made from recycled school lab benches; this is very satisfying.
In these images it's barely on - newly installed and charging itself. It works on batteries, or via DC adaptor. Now it's been on a while, it's brightly lit (4-5W of shininess). Most of the time, we get a mauve pulsing effect, and a nice cheerful red number in Pounds Per Year, or Watts.
Now, I know from my friends up at PRI that this type of clip meter is very inaccurate, but nonetheless, as a vague indicator it works well. Our readings leapt by around 2000 when we turned the tumble dryer on (or more scarily, the kettle!) and by 100W when Michael's pretty CODA display was on - clearly a powerful monitor, or perhaps they are all like that. Hmm. At least the CODA box is low power :)
We are now sitting in the growing dusk. We are watching the West Wing, on the lowest power computer in the house. We must drink our tea whilst it is hot, since it used a lot of power to make, and will retire as soon as it gets dark...