Top Uses for a Kill-a-Watt AC Power Meter
Top Uses For a Kill-a-Watt Meter P4400 AC Power Meter
The Kill-a-Watt P4400 AC Power Meter is a handy tool that every household could use. It easily pays for itself after doing a quick energy audit of your appliances. Below are some of the top ways to use the P4400 kill-a-watt:
1. Determine the cost of running your toaster oven, by adjusting the energy meter to a rate comparable to what your utility charges (i.e. $0.10/kwH).
2. Hack it to be a DIY remote energy usage meter with your Particle Photon. Solder onto the 2902 chip on board the Kill-a-Watt and monitor your current and voltage remotely. Take it one step further by triggering notifications using free 3rd party tools like IFTTT to send you a text when something turns on. **Warning: Use caution when working with high voltage electricity! – similar example project using an Xbee here
3. Measure how much power your electric car is drawing from your 120VAC outlet – example here
4. Find a vampire load in your house (no this isn’t a real vampire, it’s an appliance that is sucking power like a vampire sucks blood!). Determine if your battery charger, coffee maker, or television is sucking up power even when it is turned off.
5. See how much power your holiday lights are consuming. From there you can plug in your cents/kWh and calculate cost. And from there you can calculate how much money it cost you to make all those kids smile as they drove by your holiday lights (hint: priceless).
