Comments on: A Much Needed Device, Much in Need of Design

By: Jerry

Jerry — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:57:24 +0000

Anyone have a schematic for this device or know if one is available?
Mine quit and when I opened it I notice the fuse was blown. I bypassed the fuse and the device works fine. I think a lightning strike blew the fuse (along with a couple of other items) but not sure.

Anyway, the soldered in fuse has no markings so I don’t know what type to replace it with.
Any help would be appreciated since an under a $1 fuse is better that $30+ to replace the unit.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:28:21 +0000

Hey Omar,

Absolutely – simple, easy instructions on getting started using the device would be a boon. In the absence of my pie-in-the-sky notion of digitized data collection, a basic worksheet that aids a person with collecting their appliance data would be wonderful to see.

I wonder how P3 would take to one of us designing instructions and worksheet for free download? :)

By: omar

omar — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:43:47 +0000

michael,

you’re spot on with your kill-a-watt complaints. we can go even deeper than just redesigning the device.. people need to know how to effectively use the device, and that means they need good instructions, and help understanding what they can do. i don’t think the kill-a-watt, or what comes with it, provides either of these things.

ideally, a tool doesn’t need instructions, it’s just intuitive and you know how to use it.. but i think things are complicated enough here that a bit of smart messaging would go a long way.

i think i’m going to fiddle with my kill-o-watt right now..

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:56:21 +0000

Hey Ethan, thanks for stopping by.

It’s good to know about these other devices – and yes, I think one very real strength of the Kill-A-Watt is its affordability – I got mine for $20. (A techie once told me that a DIY version could be put together with parts costing about $4.)

Do you think that this type of device will always be for the geek? I wonder if that is an assumption made in their design, or if the usability problems come from their roots as geek tools — ie, made by geeks for geeks?

There are some high-concept designs available already for hundreds of dollars (like the DIY Kyoto Wattson) — clearly those have their place, but I would also like to see the Kill-a-Watt class of device evolve. Simple and usable like a pencil. Of course there will be people that want a space pen, too.

By: Ethan Goldman

Ethan Goldman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:59:12 +0000

I agree that electricity metering devices are being held back by poor design, but the Kill-A-Watt is not the only choice. The Brand Electronics power meter (brandelectronics.com) has been available for 10 years, and the “Watts up?” meter (wattsupmeters.com) for nearly as long. Both feature integrated cords so it’s possible to move the device to a comfortable viewing position. However, both also have way too many screens for most people, including power factor, reactive Volt-Amps, peak Watts, and so on. Worse than having too many buttons, both feature only two navigation buttons. While the Brand meter simply offers left/right buttons to scroll through about six screens, the Watts up? has a 2-level menu which you must page through using the confusingly-named “mode” and “select” buttons.

While these devices are difficult to use for consumers who simply want to save a little on their power bill, it’s clear that their target audience is energy-conservation geeks who are looking for some hard numbers to plug into their home energy-consumption spreadsheets (at least that’s what I use mine for). And as these devices start at $100-150 and run as high as $400 when tricked-out with data-logging, USB and ethernet ports, one could argue that they are not really in the same class as the Kill-A-Watt at all.