Ever wonder just how much it costs to run your computer, or any other electrical device in your home? You could estimate what it costs by calculating things out from the information on the product and your electrical cost, but that takes a lot of work. In this day and age everyone seems to be trying to find a way to conserve power usage, be it for the environment or for our wallets, it’s a good thing either way to conserve energy.

Today for review I’ve got a handy little gadget that will give you all kinds of information about your electrical devices including what it costs to run it. The product is the Kill A Watt EZ, and it not only give you a cost breakdown of your electrical usage but it gives you a bunch of other useful information as well like wattage, amps, voltage, frequency and even power factor. The Kill A Watt EZ is a very useful device for techies and non-techies alike to learn more about the devices you’ve got that are using electricity.

The Kill A Watt EZ comes in our favorite kind of packaging, the sealed plastic clamshell. It’s clear on  the front and back so you can get a full view of the product, and there’s specs and features listed as well.

The Kill A Watt EZ comes packaged with a brief instruction sheet, and that’s it. It features an LCD display with several buttons running underneath it for navigation.

It’s basically a large plastic box with LCD display and a pass-through electrical outlet. The Kill A Watt EZ  seems very well made, like it should last for quite some time.

Specifications:

P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor

Price: $49.95

The P3 Kill A Watt is possibly the most amazing innovation in terms of monitoring and reducing your electrical consumption. The Kill a Watt EZ will actually allow you to determine which machines are actually worth keeping in use. Simply plug the Kill A Watt EZ into an outlet and then your appliances into the Kill a Watt EZ and the results will display on the large easy to read screen.

Features:
*  Equipped with a large LCD display for easy viewing
* Monitors Voltage, Line Frequency, and Power Factor for complete readings
* Assesses how efficient your electrical appliances are so that you can decide which ones to disconnect
* The built-in battery backup means you won’t lose your readings if the power goes out
* Plugs in between outlet and device to be measured
* ETL listed 3039508
* UL 61010B-1
* CSA std C22.2 No. 1010-1
* 6 Month manufacturer warranty

Displays 10 critical units of measure:
* Voltage (Volt)
* Current (Amp)
* Watts (Watt)
* Kilowatt Hours (KWH)
* Frequency (Hz)
* Volt Amps (VA)
* Power Factor (PF)
* Elapsed Time
* Rate
* Cost

 

Using the Kill A Watt EZ is well, Easy, you just plug it into your outlet and then plug what you devices you want to learn about into it.  I recently got two Uninterruptible Power Supplies for a very good price, they are 450Watts each, so the Kill A Watt EZ came in mighty handy when I was trying to figure out how I could split everything up to use with them.

I wanted to hook  my computer up to the UPS systems, along with my router, monitors, network switch, NAS box and DSL modem. The main reason I wanted to do this is because of the power company I have, or at least the power lines here, aren’t very reliable, it could be a bright sunny day and the power will go out for a few minutes then come back on, very annoying.

I have two PowerSquid brand surge protectors that I use for my main equipment, one that I reviewed here previously and another that I already owned. My idea with the Kill A Watt EZ was to use it to figure out dividing the wattage equally between both of the UPS systems. I hooked the PowerSquids up to the Kill A Watt EZ and took measurements and had to swap things back and forth between the two Squids to get the load even and under the total Wattage and VA for the UPS Systems. It worked well, so I should be safe now from short lived power outages.

Here is the display of the Kill A Watt EZ with my PC and two LCD monitors hooked up to it showing Wattage, Volt Amps VA, Power Factor, Frequency HZ, Voltage and Amperage.

The Kill A Watt EZ will also show you the cost of running these things Hourly, Daily, Weekly,Yearly and Total Cost as well once you input the rate. It will also show you total time, and Kilowatt Hours.

The Kill A Watt EZ is a great little device that has many uses for tech and non-tech related people.

The only complaint I could have about the Kill A Watt EZ is the price. Prior to getting this for review I used a Seasonic Power Angel to do almost the same thing and it retails for $30 most places while the Kill A Watt EZ sells for $50, $20 more. The Power Angel does everything the Kill A Watt EZ does except calculate the cost, so you’re paying $20 more to figure out what it costs you to run your devices, is it worth it? Maybe, maybe not…

Conclusion:
For me the Kill A Watt EZ is a great little device, it can be used for testing and learning more about electrical devices that I use. It can be an invaluable tool in any tech toolbox for getting information about a device.

For the regular person the Kill A Watt EZ might be able to actually save you a few dollars. Ever wonder how much that TV or DVD player is using while in standby mode? Now you can figure out just how much money you’re wasting when you leave it in standby mode, you’ll learn how much money you can save just by unplugging something.

The Kill A Watt EZ is an excellent product overall and it can be very useful for most anyone.

 

Pros:
+Easy to use
+Portable to take with you
+Seems well made

Cons:
-A bit more expensive compared to others

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance