Upm em100

Cariboocoot

This is similar to a Kill-A-Watt meter. It is more readily available here in Canada (any Canadian Tire store) and slightly cheaper, especially if you get it on sale. I bought mine for $19.95 +"HST" (Horrible Sales Tax).

It does the usual measurements: Volts, Amps, Watts and peak Amps, Peak Watts. Plus there's the "count watts over time" function with input for $ so you can figure out how much any given device is actually contributing to the size of your electric bill. Never bothered with that; don't have an electric bill!

I'd say it works at least as well as the Kill-A-Watt, although I haven't seen the newest version of that. In one respect it seems to work better: people are always telling me the K-A-W doesn't react fast enough to catch start-up currents on motors. Since that operation generally takes place in under one second and the K-A-W samples per second you can see why it'd be missed. I can't find technical data on the UPM that says what its sampling rate is, but I've managed to get peaks on the refrigerator, water pump, and sump (that last one was 12.07 A - I believe it has a "soft start" due to the nature of its function).

On the whole I'd say it's a good value. If more people took a look at how much power they use every day they wouldn't scream so much when the bill arrives.