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Like most, I have seen the cost for our electricity rise each
month, not only is the price rising but the amount we use has become
a serious issue. This combination now means our electric bill for
our household is the fourth largest each month, only exceeded by the
mortgage, food and petrol. Just paying more is no longer an option;
something had to be done to reduce usage and costs.
Looking round the internet I came upon a product made by Eco-Eye (www.eco-eye.com)
of England. They offered a device that would constantly monitor our
electricity consumption and display in real time that information
via an easy to read display. After talking to a very nice lady at
Eco-Eye about these problems I was offered an Eco-Eye Elite and Mini
to review, I must acknowledge that this is a first for BH Reviews as
for the last 12 years I have only reviewed computer hardware or
software.
The next day the postman duly gave me package from Eco-Eye; it came
on time and was well packed. The device is made up of three parts, a
sensor, transmitter and a receiver/display unit, batteries and full
instructions are also included plus a plastic key that fits the lock
on the electricity box.
The first job was to fit the two AA batteries to the transmitter,
then fit the sensor to the live feed from the outside main
electricity box, a short wire from the sensor plugs into the
transmitter. (See video 1 & 2)
Next I installed batteries into the Elite and Mini, both then went
through their power up routines. (See video 3) At this point I set the date and
time, cost of electricity and voltage. This took no more than a few
minutes to complete and the system was now up and running. I then
tested the range of the wireless connection by moving the Eco-Eye
Mini around the house and front and back gardens and walking up and
down the road outside (max range seems to be about 52 meters). At times up to 4 walls separated the
transmitter and receiver, yet the signal was received perfectly.
This excellent range could prove a problem if your neighbours have
an Eco-Eye but the back room guys at Eco Eye have already come up
with a solution. Each transmitter and receiver can operate on any
one of 30 channels, the default is channel 2.
Please note the Elite and Mini function in the same way and only
differ in size of display. You only need one or the other, the Mini
was ideal for carrying round the home to see the effects of turning
things on and off, you could if you wish do the same with the Elite.
The Elite having a larger display and is ideal for those with
impaired vision or for keeping an eye on from the far side of the
lounge.
The first thing I did was to go round turning every thing off, that
included the two fridges and two freezers, central heating,
everything that was on stand by and all those wonderful little power
bricks. The display said the house was still using 80 watts,
detection work showed this to be the pair of mains smoke detectors
and five clock radio’s. Once I had turned back on the fridges and
freezers and not forgetting the power bricks, consumption jumped to
400 watts. It was at this point I found out the central heating pump
was consuming 130 watts just on its own, and this runs continually
24/7, just keeping the hot water tank up to temperature. This
constant heat flow from the boiler to the hot water store had the
added problem of keeping a bedroom way to hot during the summer, as
the pipes run under that floor.
Over the next few days it became apparent that our minimum
continuous usage was around 600 to 800 watts, depending on which
compressors in the fridges and freezers were running.
At night time this usage went up as lights were turned on, luckily
all our lights are ultra low wattage and with all of them on they
only added 200 watts.
An eye opener was the electricity needed to run each computer, our
low power, so called green PC, needed 150 watts and our “Big Boy”
Games PC needed 550 watts. It was a if those twin graphic cards were
doing a secondary job as a fan heater.
The highest usage was the main fan oven in the kitchen, which
consumed electricity at an alarming rate of 4,200watts; the Sunday
roast was costing an arm and a leg.
During all this time, both Eco-Eye Elite and Mini were keeping
track of all electricity used which could be recalled using the
memory function via the arrow buttons on each display unit.
We found the following actions reduced our electricity consumption:
1: Turn things off.
2: Turn things off when not needed.
3: Make sure the washing machine and dishwasher are fully loaded
when in use.
4: Run the washing machine and dishwasher during the economy 7
hours if possible, our electricity cost 5 times less during those 7
hours each night when compared to the normal day time tariff.
5: Set the washing machine and dishwasher to work at lower
temperature settings.
6: Fit a timer to the central heating system, so that the pump now
only runs 6 hours each day. Note: more hours will probably be needed
during the winter.
7: Make sure all electrical goods purchased in future are A rated
for energy consumption.
After a month the savings seem to be an average of around 4,000
watts each day, or about £180 a year.
The Eco-Elite now sits near our TV thus allowing easy monitoring of
our electricity consumption, especially in the evening when usage is
highest.
Of interest to computer users, Eco-Eye are soon to release Wi-Eye
a receiver that plugs into a USB port and feeds the data from the
sensor/transmitter into Eco-Eyes’ own software.
Eco Eye are launching a 3 phase version of the
products in August which will have the ability of measuring not only
single or 3 phase, but also up to 3 feeds from a single supply - ie.
if you were wanting to measure a sum total of power used on 3
different areas in a property for instance.
The one question I have been asked by
friends “is the Eco-Eye Elite worth £50”. Well the answer is YES, in
just a few short weeks I have made changes that will save us around
£180 a year and I am sure with some fine tuning an additional £100
saving a year can be made. All thanks to the user friendly Eco-Eye
range of products.
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Eco-eye can be contacted via: |
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