Best Selling Electricity Usage Monitors

These days’ people are trying to save money anywhere they can.  This can include fewer trips to the store, cutting down on luxury items, eating out less, and making everything from cars to clothes last longer.  Most people realize that saving on energy costs is important too and are making sure to turn off lights or other appliances when they leave the room.  However, many appliances such as televisions, computers and digital video recorders continue to consume power day and night, even if they are turned off.

Although it is usually easy to see that an appliance is using some power by the glowing LED or similar, it is difficult to know if the energy use is significant (and some of these “Energy Vampires” can use hundreds of dollars of electricity a year!).  This is where a portable electricity monitor (or meter) can be very useful.  These devices will tell you exactly how much electricity a device uses, along with other important information.  Below are some of the best selling electricity usage monitors on Amazon.

This popular and inexpensive model displays the energy consumption of appliances and devices in kilowatt-hours, similar to how utility companies measure electricity.  Simply by plugging the device into a wall socket and reading the large LED display, it is easy to calculate electrical expenses and see which appliances are using electricity unnecessarily.  In addition to measuring electricity usage, the P4400 can also monitor voltage, line frequency and power factor – you can detect voltage drops throughout your home as well as easily test individual electrical plugs (great if you’re buying a house or even renting an apartment).

Very similar to the P4400, this bestselling electricity usage monitor includes a large LCD display, a built in battery backup as well as the ability to monitor voltage, line frequency and power factor with an accuracy of 0.2%.  Users have indicated that one of the main differences between the P4400 and P4460 is that the P4460 model has a memory that enables it to “remember” the previous use of electricity when the device is shut off and when they are turned back on, the P4460 continues tracking the electricity usage.

The P4480 Electricity Monitor is the most feature rich of the three “P” series monitors produced by P3 International.  In addition to many of the features offered in the P4400 and P4460, such as the ability to monitor voltage, line frequency and power factor, the P4480 has the ability to turn appliances on and off while it monitors energy use, helping you automatically save money throughout the day.  It also includes a built in surge protector that protects your appliances and devices from power surges and voltage spikes.  Unlike many monitoring / timing devices, it can hold up to seven days of programming.  If you’re looking for one electricity monitor with multiple uses, this one is for you.

The Black and Decker EM100B Energy Saver Power Monitor is a compact and easy to install device that will help you keep track of the electricity used by your household appliances in real time.  The device is easy to install – all that is necessary is to mount it on your outdoor electric meter, align it and then synchronizing the sensor with the cordless monitor.  From then on, you can track your electricity usage from any location in range (no more going out in the rain or whatnot to make a reading!).  The EM100B energy monitor displays your energy costs in dollars, so it is not necessary to calculate the actual cost every time you want to determine how much money you’ve spent.  Using this information to optimize your energy use, you can save quite a bit over the course of a year.

The Watts up? PRO Electricity Usage Monitor comes with a wide variety of features (and a somewhat silly name) that includes the ability to record electrical data as fast as once per second, and a USB connection so you can download the data to your computer and used the included software to analyze your electricity usage and costs.  A nice feature of the software is the Payback Calculator that can calculate the time it will take for an appliance to pay for itself (great when buying a new energy efficient refrigerator or other large appliance).  The extensive range of features is too much to list here, but the full listing on Amazon shows everything you can do with this versatile device.

The Blue Line Innovation BLI 28000 Electricity Monitor allows you to monitor your household electricity usage in real time.  Similar to the Black and Decker EM100B, it does not monitor the individual usage of appliances or lights, but allows you to monitor your total electrical usage.  A wireless sensor is attached to your standard home energy meter and transmits the energy usage to a large LED screen that you can keep in the house.  Although you can’t explicitly track individual appliances, you can monitor when your energy use peaks and determine what devices are on at that time.