Kill A Watt™ is a monitor that tracks electricity usage. Manufactured by a company called P3 International, this monitor can be used by people who have experienced high electricity bills and are wondering what is causing them to be so high. It may also be used by those who are simply curious about how much it costs to run appliances and other electrical devices. The idea behind the Kill A Watt™ monitor is that a person can use it to reduce his energy bills by deciding to either use the energy-sucking devices less or buy more energy-efficient appliances. Besides power consumption, this monitor can analyze volts, frequency, amps and power factor.
One thing people will notice when considering the Kill A Watt™ monitor is its size. It is small, coming in at only a hair over 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) in height and a little over 2 inches (5.08 centimeters) wide. It is also just slightly more than 1 inch (2.54 centimeters) thick. The monitor is designed to plug into an ordinary outlet, which must be able to accept a three-pronged plug, and includes a space for plugging an appliance directly into the monitor. Using this device, it is easy to monitor how much power an appliance or other device is using in kilowatt hours; the power-use reading is displayed on the monitor's LCD screen.
By using the Kill A Watt™ monitor, a person can analyze how much power a particular electrical appliance or device is using per hour. He can then use this figure to calculate how much energy the device consumes on a daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly basis. He can compare the device’s power consumption with how much his energy provider charges him per kilowatt hour. For example, if a person is paying $.09 US Dollars (USD) per kilowatt hour and an appliance requires .22 kilowatts per hour to run, he would pay close to $.02 USD to run it for an hour, about $.47 USD to run it for a 24-hour day, and about $173 USD to run it every day for a full year.
The Kill A Watt™ monitor has some limitations. First, it cannot analyze some of the more high-powered appliances and devices that require higher volts of electricity. For example, a hot tub may require 220 volts, and the Kill A Watt™ would not be able to analyze it. It has a maximum voltage of 115 and a maximum current of 125.
