Cheap Onzo Energy meter - £8

[saaby93]

ST_Nuts said:

no, 3 AAA's. Just put new batteries in both units and now it won't even pair. It's going in the bin.

How far away are you pairing them?
I thought mine wouldnt pair but they need to be within a few inches
The buttons are awful - have I already said that

the sequence seems to be
If the pairing button is recognised on the display it seems to have a chasing its tail pattern on the LCD while checking for a sender
The pairing button on the sender blinks the yellow LED

When theyre paired the aerial symbol bottom left disappears on the display

[ajprice]

I have a 900w microwave, I turned it on tonight and the readout went up by about 1400w. So I think I might be in the odd readings club.

[Scrump]

ajprice said:

I have a 900w microwave, I turned it on tonight and the readout went up by about 1400w. So I think I might be in the odd readings club.

900W is the cooking power, the microwave will draw more energy than that to generate it. I thought it was about 50% extra (or the cooking power is 2/3 of the electricity used) so your figures sound about right to me.

[ajprice]

Scrump said:

ajprice said:

I have a 900w microwave, I turned it on tonight and the readout went up by about 1400w. So I think I might be in the odd readings club.

900W is the cooking power, the microwave will draw more energy than that to generate it. I thought it was about 50% extra (or the cooking power is 2/3 of the electricity used) so your figures sound about right to me.

Every day is a school day. Cheers!

[ST_Nuts]

saaby93 said:

How far away are you pairing them?
I thought mine wouldnt pair but they need to be within a few inches
The buttons are awful - have I already said that

the sequence seems to be
If the pairing button is recognised on the display it seems to have a chasing its tail pattern on the LCD while checking for a sender
The pairing button on the sender blinks the yellow LED

When theyre paired the aerial symbol bottom left disappears on the display

Yeah within inches of each other. No amount of button pushing combination will pair it - The signal icon just flashes with an exclamation mark.

Yes the button is so crap. Just like the rest of it.

[saaby93]

Second one received

The recharagable battery pack has less life in it than a dodo, but this time the units were already paired out of the box and it's not reading double the power

[kev1974]

I like mine, even though they are well flakey on batteries, it was well worth buying just to thump home that when I turn on the lights in the rooms I've converted to LED there's virtually no increase in consumption, but the rooms that are still on halogen downlighters instantly spike the thing. Good encouragement to get on and finish switching more fittings to LED asap.

[TonyRPH]

My son's girlfriend bought a house a year or so back - there was 600W of halogen lighting in the kitchen alone.

600w !!!!

The entire house had halogen down lighters, and with all lights on power consumption was over 1kW

Madness.

[Mr Pointy]

saaby93 said:

Second one received

The recharagable battery pack has less life in it than a dodo, but this time the units were already paired out of the box and it's not reading double the power

Jolly good. Did you have to buy another or did the seller replace it?

[croyde]

TonyRPH said:

My son's girlfriend bought a house a year or so back - there was 600W of halogen lighting in the kitchen alone.

600w !!!!

The entire house had halogen down lighters, and with all lights on power consumption was over 1kW

Madness.

Yep. Kitchen in a rental house I lived in only had 8 100w down lighters.

It was like an operating theatre.

[ajprice]

I've got downlighters, replaced them a couple of years ago with newer ones, there's 6 of them and I think they are a GU10 fitting. If it's possible to just replace the bulbs I'll be keeping a lookout for LED ones in the black Friday sales, maybe Hue/Alexa compatible types.

[TonyRPH]

ajprice said:

I've got downlighters, replaced them a couple of years ago with newer ones, there's 6 of them and I think they are a GU10 fitting. If it's possible to just replace the bulbs I'll be keeping a lookout for LED ones in the black Friday sales, maybe Hue/Alexa compatible types.

If they're mains powered and 55W each that's 330W for all the time you run those lights.

Put in some decent LEDs and that'll drop to around 60W to 70W, or roughly 1/6th of the power you;re using now....

[kev1974]

ajprice said:

I've got downlighters, replaced them a couple of years ago with newer ones, there's 6 of them and I think they are a GU10 fitting. If it's possible to just replace the bulbs I'll be keeping a lookout for LED ones in the black Friday sales, maybe Hue/Alexa compatible types.

If they are GU10 then you can indeed go straight to LED (subject to maybe having to replace any dimmer switches on the circuit), no need to wait for black friday, the super cheap ones from Screwfix are very good these days, or there are other threads about which lamps to buy if you have some precise requirement.

The GU10 Hue lamps are longer than typical GU10 so need a bit more thought before switching to them as they stick out the bottom of many downlight fittings and look a bit daft, again there are dedicated threads with more detail about them than can fit here.

[saaby93]

Mr Pointy said:

saaby93 said:

Second one received

The recharagable battery pack has less life in it than a dodo, but this time the units were already paired out of the box and it's not reading double the power

Jolly good. Did you have to buy another or did the seller replace it?

Yes , although for the price, wasnt too bothered

The battery pack has decided not to behave like a dodo. Having cleaned the crud off its terminal, it took a couple of days to charge in the old unit.

[Dave.]

Well, that didn't last long!

It was showing 20odd kW used this morning, just less than double "normal". Noticed it was bouncing about last night, between nowt and 3 or 400w.

Now its on just shy of 18kw, bouncing around between 1.1 and 1.7kw.

Ah well, it served its purpose for a couple of week....

[TonyRPH]

Dave. said:

Well, that didn't last long!

It was showing 20odd kW used this morning, just less than double "normal". Noticed it was bouncing about last night, between nowt and 3 or 400w.

Now its on just shy of 18kw, bouncing around between 1.1 and 1.7kw.

Ah well, it served its purpose for a couple of week....

Sounds like your sensor is not placed in the correct position.

Bear in mind that it senses the electromagnetic field generated by current flow through the cable, so if there's any metal in (very) close proximity to the sensor, it's likely to mess around with the readings.

[Dave.]

Other half moved the display, but that was at the end of last week, it was fine up until yesterday.

Nothing else has changed, unless the sensor's fallen off.

[saaby93]

Comparing the two, my original that reads 6kW for the kettle is more erratic whn reading base level for the house than the good one.

[croyde]

All its proved to me is that I'd save loads if I lived on my own but getting stressed trying to change the family's wasteful habits is ageing me very quickly.

[megaphone]

croyde said:

All its proved to me is that I'd save loads if I lived on my own but getting stressed trying to change the family's wasteful habits is ageing me very quickly.

Tell them they will have to pay the bills, will soon change their ways.