A basic home electricity monitor
The Current Cost system is a two-part kit that allows users to monitor the amount of energy used in their homes.
Several different parts and kits are available via the company's online shop. We reviewed the ENVI-CC128 remote monitor kit (£40), which includes all the items necessary to monitor power usage in one home.
Setting up the kit was simple. The transmitter must be placed near to the main electricity cable into your home and includes a Velcro pad for attaching it to the wall. Its small plastic clamp sensor then clips around the main electricity cable. After plugging in the Envi monitor in another room it immediately locked onto the signal from the transmitter.
The monitor then shows the amount of power currently being used by every device in the home in watts or kilowatts, as well as a cost per day or month (this display alternates between the two). In order to make these costs accurate you’ll need to input your power costs, and setting the clock will make the display’s three graphs, for the previous day, evening and night, more useful.
This all worked well enough, although it’s a shame that both the daily and monthly costs aren’t both shown simultaneously on the large screen. We were slightly disappointed by the Envi metering unit, however, as although it looks like it should be portable in its dock-like stand, it must in fact always be connected to the mains – you’ll need to find somewhere convenient to leave it running all the time. It’s also, in our opinion, a little bit ugly, and the plasticky build doesn’t help in this regard.
It’s also a shame that, although the device can be connected to a PC to view historical energy use data, you won’t be able to do so without a special cable. This process would be so much easier and simpler had the designers used a standard USB connection instead. Without this cable we were unable to test the PC software, which is available as a download from the company’s website.
