Well I got my Kill – A – Watt electricity meter in the mail. It really is a lot of fun… in a nerdy, penny pinching way. It lets you measure two main things, the electricity coming out of the socket and amount being used by a device.
It can tell you the Voltage and Hz of the electricity coming out of the socket. This should tell you the “quality” of the electricity you are getting. It should be around 120 volts and 50/60hz. If it is off from this then various appliance might not work right.
It also tells you how much juice a device is sucking and how much it has used over time. You can look at how many amps or watts a device is using. It also shows the amount of kilowatts it has used and for how long it has been measuring.
So far it seems pretty acurate, I am going to have to play with it a bit more and report back on how much different things use. Off course I am not too smart with this stuff, so I have to figure out what it all really means.
One interesting thing is that all of those black box that you use to charge cell phones and what-not all use power, even if they are not connected to anything. Crazy huh?!? Well stayed tuned for more crazy facts!
Kill – A – Watt: From Amazon ~ $29