Best Buy TED The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor TED1001 with Footprints Software

TED Detective Electricity Footprints Software - TED, The Energy Detective, lets you know immediately how much electricity your home is consuming, how much money you spend on electricity each day, how much you have spent on electricity so far during the billing cycle, and much more. TED continuously monitors electricity consumption for the entire home, not just one appliance or circuit. With TED you will help conserve energy and save money. TED comes in three pieces: an attractive receiving display unit that plugs into any household outlet, a transmitting unit that is located inside the household circuit box, and two current transformers that clamp around incoming power lines. Installation should only be performed by a professional electrician or someone who is knowledgeable of household wiring...read more...  | see price..



TED Detective Electricity Footprints Software - Technical Details :
  • With Footprints Data-Logging Software
  • Data is recorded every one second.
  • Accurate to within 2%.Data is logged in .CSV format and can be exported to create user-defined chart
  • Logs KW, kWh, dollars and voltage.
  • Displays greenhouse gas emissions...read more...  | see price..
TED Detective Electricity Footprints Software Review :

Fast and easy to install
After reading some of the other reviews, i was concerned that I might run into some issues. In fact, it took no time to have the unit up and running. The only complaints I have about the unit are software related.

Hardware:

I've done a variety of electrical wiring before, so panels don't scare me. Basically, installation involves taking the cover off of your electrical panel, hooking a wire to a free circuit breaker (or a used one if none are free), and a wire to the neutral bar. My neutral bar was quite full, so there was a little bit of manipulation to get the wires in, but nothing too problematic. Once that is done, you snap in the inductance coils, put them over the main lines coming in to the panel, and put the cover back on. That was actually the most time consuming part for me, because the inductance coils were interfering with the recess in the panel so i had to manipulate for a bit to get everything closed. But that hardly seems like a technical challenge.

After that, I just plugged in the Ted unit, making sure it was on a non-surge protected line (which may or may not be required, but usually it isn't good to plug in line communication based devices on to cleaned power lines).

Next, software setup. This was the less fun part. The package has instructions for a site to go to if you are a vista 64 user. the page it takes you to doesn't exist, and after an email to TED, they said ignore that and use the software as is, but there are a variety of changes to make to run in admin mode and to shut off some user protection settings.

That was the worst part of the whole experience, so I'm dinging them 1 star for having the software be a pain on vista.

Entering in the price charts for the power usage wasn't bad. I still haven't figured out how to get the device training to work, but I am actively monitoring all of the power use, and have discovered, for example, that the fan on the central heat consumes more electricity than a plasma tv (but less than the electric oven), and can see other devices turning off and on.

It has been quite useful to understand part of my electrical usage, and it is certainly important that it is a whole house monitor, not simply an outlet monitor.

Altogether, it is easy to install, the display is easy to read and understand, and it does what it says it does quite well.

Now I wish I could find a similar device for my gas line...





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