Customer Reviews

TED The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor TED1001 with Footprints Software

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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!

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...

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...

I purchased and installed my TED about 4 months ago. We're not currently using the packaged software. Overall, we're very happy with this device because it gives a unique, literally valuable window into your home's energy usage. I'll focus my observations on points I haven't seen in previous reviews.

Location: We've placed the display unit next to the kitchen sink, where we find ourselves spending a lot of time over the course of the day. Additionally, since we tend to be on our feet already while standing at the sink, we're more likely to recognize an unusual draw and go find the culprit.

Teaching the Kids: We have two boys, aged 4 and 7. Once I explained what the device was, they were immediately fascinated and frequently run around the house, turning things off, and seeing how low they could get the overall draw. To really motivate them, I've tied their allowances to our energy usage.

Energy Savings: It's a cliche', but knowledge is power. I never knew that drying a load of clothes with my electric dryer costs about 50 cents, or that the blower on my gas furnace operates at about 1 kwh (which means about 10 cents an hour in many markets). Just that second point makes you realize why it's important to keep the filter clean on your furnace. I've consistently reduced my monthly electrical bills using TED.

Device Aesthetics: Well, it's not a pretty thing. As someone who's worked in product design and development for over 15 years, I believe I can safely say that the device was designed by a very well-intentioned engineer. The user interface is very simple and clear, the functionality is excellent, but it looks like lab-ware. Not house-ware. I'd like to see a makeover for the next generation.

Noisy Old House Wiring: Our house is about 100 years old and the wiring's pretty ancient. There are a few modern halogen fixtures in the house with 24v transformers that seem to interfere with TED's communications. Basically, when those lights are on, TED doesn't work. On the bright side, this tends to motivate me to go find those lights and turn them off ; )

Overall, I think every house should have one of these devices. In a world that is so dependent on energy, it's odd that the average person knows very little about how much their house is using at any given time. After living with one for several months, I find it's somewhat surprising that energy monitors like TED aren't in everyone's homes. This would seem to be a valuable tool in helping us toward our national goals regarding energy independence.

Any time I tell people about TED they give me this look like "Um..ok...so what's the point?" They look at it like it is useless because they assume whatever power they are running is what is needed for them to live the way they are living. It's not like there is a way to watch TV without using power or light up a room without using power.

But what they don't realize is there are tons of ways to cut-down on power without making radical changes to your lifestyle. A lot of the changes have to do with phantom loads and buying surge protectors with power switches. Those are really key because you are paying for the phantom load power 24/7. But there are other ways such as lowering the backlight level on your gigantic LCD TV. With TED you can see the trade-off between brightness and power consumption.

You can also see how expensive it is to run your dryer, fridge, oven and HVAC and make some lifestyle changes. Now you can easily make a decision if it is worth your effort drying the clothes outside on a clothesline or buying and using a small toaster oven instead of your normal oven. It is much easier to force lifestyle changes if you know it is going to save you X amount of dollars every month. Lowering your electricity bill without any knowledge of what is going on is a extremely difficult task that I found to be overwhelming. You can make changes but you really have no idea of which changes are cost effective and which aren't and it takes an entire month to find out the answer. I know you can read your meter outside and theoretically do the same thing. But trust me, it way easier to have TED next your bed then to go look outside at the meter at 10 PM.

On the downside, you do have to have a computer hooked on 24/7 if you want to record all of your data. It would be nice if they would let you put a SD card in their device and have it record X number of days depending on the size of the card. Then you could transfer the data to your computer as needed. But really, the streaming charts are only needed for trouble shooting and optimization. Most of the time I just look at it at the end of the day and make sure I'm using about what I should each day. If it is really high I ask my wife what she was doing today while I was at work.

Also, initial setup can be a pain because you are setting up both software and hardware. My recommendation is to not even look at the software until you think you have the hardware setup perfectly. Otherwise, you are creating a troubleshooting nightmare.

The best thing about this little gizmo is that it makes energy conservation fun. Once you see how much electricity you are using, and how much each appliance uses, you start discovering new ways to save.

Installation was a bit intimidating for a total novice. But once we got the TED working, it worked fine and is fun to use.

Installation challenges: Our service panel has incoming "hot" wires that remain live even when the main breaker is turned off. So to be sure we were installing the sending unit safely, we had to do some online homework on home wiring, then plan carefully to install the sending unit safely and quickly by flashlight. (The instruction manual's tiny print was almost illegible, so we made a copy and enlarged it.)

Next, the receiving unit didn't work. After tediously rechecking everything, we finally called customer service. They responded promptly and immediately diagnosed the (apparently common) problem: TED will not work in all outlets, even on the correct "phase." Electrical "noise" from our computer and peripherals were interfering with TED's reception. Once I plugged TED into an outlet across the room, it worked fine and has ever since.

The "Footprints" software (purchased separately) is a bit crude, but does its job. It records a data stream that you can analyze in different ways. Most importantly, it showed us us the peak consumption when our electric furnace kicked in during the wee hours, enabling us to tweak our thermostat to further reduce waste.

By entering into TED your cost per Kw of electricity (available from your electric bill), you display current and historical consumption in either Kw or dollars.

Once installed, TED's drawbacks are relatively minor, but really should be fixed in the next version: 1) the receiving unit itself saves no data; to maintain a data stream, it must be connected continuously to the computer, which eats up about 16K RAM. 2) For some reason, our receiving unit occasionally "reboots" when touched, so the "counter" restarts. 3) the Footprints software is a bit clunky, making it tedius to review past data.

The bottom line: By making us conscious of electrical consumption and source, TED motivated us to make some relatively simple changes -- lowering the thermostat at night and during the day, installing CFL's and turning out lights, putting a timer on the water heater, etc. -- that dramatically cut our electric use. In fact, in our first month of use, January 09, our Kw consumption per local "degree day" (which corrects for weather conditions) dropped over 30% compared to the previous year.

P.S. The TED is also a great conversation piece. Everybody who sees it is intrigued.

I was kind of skeptical at first, but this thing gives you so much feedback about your energy usage, you cannot help but save some somewhere. You can watch things turn on and off in your house, and see exactly how much energy every item is using. Now this in itself is not a big help, to know how much your refrigerator, or your clothes dryer is using. You're going to use them anyway, and it won't change the amount, unless you decide to dry clothes twice a month instead of every other day.

But let me give you an example of what I found out with this device. My living room TV usually stays on nearly 24/7, even if no one is watching it. I had NO idea it was using 450 watts, or nearly $30 a month to keep on 24/7. I discovered when the air conditioner is running it kicked it up about 5 thousand watts. There are all kinds of things you can discover, and manipulate to within your means.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I think every house in the US should have one of these, but I would go so far as to say that every house in the US with someone who can interpret the data should have one. But if you know what a kilowatt is, and you have basic skills, this thing provides all the feedback you'll ever need, and accurately, I might add.

Do not get the TED! Simply look at the display, this device is old and outdated. It doesn't always work and the smallest things disturb the data flow. Once upon a time the TED was the only reliable Electric monitor available, not anymore. There are other devices available, for ALOT cheaper. Here is the best one I have found so far Energy Saving Monitor ENVI-CC128 Complete Unit with Transmitter Why spend more money for a device that may not work?

If you have a Time Of Use meter (TOU) that charges different rates at different times of day, TED is VERY difficult to set up.

Where I live there are peak, partial-peak, and off-peak rates. The daily cycle goes off-peak, partial-peak, peak, partial-peak in summer and partial-peak, off-peak in winter. TED cannot seem to handle this (or if it does, the instructions are of no use).

Further, if you make an error during the 30-ish step set-up, you can't go back and correct it. You have to repeat the whole process all over again.

Free advice to the company: It has USB on it. You should include an Excel (CSV) template for customers to plug their rates into and then allow them to save that file to the TED (as a USB Mass Storage device).

If you are working to make your home energy efficient, this meter provides great information about how much power your home is using. Switch something on and you can see the power consumption go up. Examples include: ceiling fan - 20 watts; whole house fan - 270 watts; inefficient old heat pump - yikes!

This information was very helpful in my household to help us become more educated about the amount of power our appliances use. You can program your local electrical rate into the meter as well, and it will keep track of both the number of kilowatt hours used, and the associated cost.