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This summer, you may be frustrated by paying more than usual on your electricity bill. You’re not alone. With rising energy prices and increased appliance usage, this is inevitable. By understanding how much electricity each appliance in your home uses, you can make informed choices to save money.
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The trend of measuring power consumption at the appliance level was first popularized by the Kill-A-Watt in the early 2000s in the United States. The Kill-A-Watt, which is a play on the word kilowatt, is a device that measures the amount of electricity used by various household appliances. All you need to do is plug it into a wall outlet and then plug any appliance into the Kill-A-Watt and voilà – you will see how much electricity that appliance is consuming in real time. You can then measure the units consumed per hour and get the figure for that month. Unfortunately, this feature is not available in India and even if you try to buy one, it is not compatible with the 220V voltage used in Indian households. Additionally, this feature requires some effort to manually measure each appliance and perform the calculations.
Read more: 10 tech tips to help reduce your electricity bill and beat the summer heat
Fortunately, there are a number of WiFi-enabled smart plugs with energy monitoring features available for purchase on Indian e-commerce websites. Several brands like Hero Group’s Qubo, TP-Link, Wipro, Havells, and Philips offer a wide range of these products at very reasonable prices compared to similar products sold abroad. Prices start at Rs 699 for the 10A smart plug and Rs 899 for the 16A version. While the 10A version is suitable for small appliances like laptop chargers, kettles, or televisions, the 16A version is suitable for large appliances like water heaters, microwaves, and even air conditioners. This method is convenient and easy to use, and is more accurate than the manual method.
Qubo smart plug monitors power consumption, sets schedules
My home PC is on for many hours every day and I decided to check if that was causing my electricity consumption and electricity bill to increase. I ordered the 10A and 16A versions of Qubo Smart Plug. I use their Car Dash Cam and have had a good experience so far, so I decided to try their smart plug. Most of their devices are manufactured in India and the mobile app is available on both iOS and Android.
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The setup process is very simple. You install smart plug into your wall outlet, start Qubo app on your smartphone and start the pairing process. You need to search for the device and pair it with your account. Now you can go ahead and connect the device to smart plug to use all the features. You can set schedules, countdowns, and connect Alexa. You can see your energy consumption in kWh for the day and month with a nice little graph. You get other relevant data like current, voltage, and total energy consumption. The best part is that it works over the internet, so you can control your appliances at home even when you are away. You can turn on the air conditioner at home before you get home, schedule your water heater to turn on every morning at 7am for 20 minutes, or turn off the refrigerator when you are away on vacation.
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Read more: Sad AC Bill? These 5 AC Tips Will Help You Reduce Your Electricity Bill
The app displays the data in real time, so I can see that my air conditioner uses significantly less electricity when operating at 26 degrees than 22. These numbers add up over time, and over a 30-day period, the savings are significant.
Wipro Smart Extension Board for Multiple Outlets, Auto Cut-Off
If you plan on connecting multiple devices, Wipro even offers power socket priced at Rs 1890 with 4 sockets and comes with features like energy monitoring, auto shut-off, scheduling and the ability to control your devices via Alexa and Google Assistant.
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Ohm Assistant helps monitor energy in real time via mobile app
You can also go one step further and decide to monitor your consumption directly at the source. There are products that can be installed in the electrical distribution box inside your home. One of these products is Ohm Assistant from SustLabs incubated at IIT Bombay. Ohm Assistant is a real-time energy monitoring product for the home and needs to be professionally installed by a qualified electrician. The device is called the Ohm Bot and takes about 30 minutes to install and once set up, your electricity consumption data is available on your smartphone via WiFi. Ohm Assistant The app is available on both Android and iOS and is also accessible from the website.
Read more: This air conditioner buying tip will help reduce your electricity bill a lot this summer
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We tend to assume that appliances don’t use electricity when they are in standby mode and not in use. Appliances like televisions, monitors and UPS units use a small amount of electricity when they are idle, and if they are idle for long periods of time, these numbers add up and end up being expensive. You should also run your appliances in energy-saving mode whenever possible.
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