TED The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor TED1001 with Footprints Software

by TED

Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B000Y3JRY8
• Item model number: 1001
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #110,454 in Home Improvement (See Top 100 in Home Improvement)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Save a watt and help the enviroment., October 28, 2008

By 

Raxxal - See all my reviews

This review is from: TED The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor TED1001 with Footprints Software (Electronics)

TED is the ultimate toy to keep track of your electrical bill. I also have the Kill-a-Watt, and compare both with a 100 watts bulb and nothing else connected to the house, both display 100 watts. I was impressed! I had a little trouble installing TED not because the installation is difficult but because one of the cable(phase A) did not have enough room to clamp the CT. Other than, it was fun installing it.

Most pictures you see on the Internet, look like TED has an illuminated display, but it has not. So keep this in mind. I wish TED had an illuminated display. I will try to hack TED on this.

I love the MATRIX display type. With this kind of display you will have less restriction of what you can read. Basically, you can display or read any characters, increase the fonts, etc. So far, TED is doing what was designed for, letting me know how much power and how much money I am using EVERY hour, and much more information.
The software is not that great. This is an Adobe Flash Player based graphic display. So forget it about dragging and resizing the graphic. The settings are not that flexible. The chart displays only two values: voltage and Kilo-watts-hour. I have not been able to use the data export, I contacted the manufacturer, but like most devices, who designed it is not the one providing the support.

UPDATE:

I have to admit that I rush writing my review about TED. This is why you should not buy TED yet unless they fixed some really bad issues. First of all, the remote unit installed in the breaker panel behaves very erratically, what I mean is that it transmits very intermittent. Some times for minutes it will not transmit any data at all! Wow! So during that time you don't have any data of the the power used in the house. I posted a couple videos in youtube, just search for raxxal and you will see what I am talking about.

I contacted the manufactures whom I believe is The Energy Detective, they sent me another display unit even though I told them the problem is at the transmitter, guess what? Same problem!
I contacted those guys again, this time I want to return TED, so far they have not responded.

The software is not that great, and you need the computer to be ON all the time to be able to re record the data.

So be aware of these issues. In my opinion TED needs more works!

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Powerline carrier conflict - X10, March 14, 2009

By 

Brian (Warwick, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TED The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor TED1001 with Footprints Software (Electronics)

The product worked very well except for the fact that the remote communicates with the base unit by sending power line carrier communications over the powerline itself. This will play havoc with your X10 / Leviton DHC-PLC type switches and receivers. There are ways to isolate this problem with filters but its a pain... wait for the RF based Mesh unit they are supposed to come out with...

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast and easy to install, April 26, 2009

By 

M. Hyman "Artist at large" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: TED The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor TED1001 with Footprints Software (Electronics)

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...