power meters [ was low power linux PC? ]

[Alex Hewitt]

On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:53 -0400, Paul Lussier wrote:
> Alex Hewitt <hewitt_tech at comcast.net> writes:
> 
> > I believe this item,
> > "http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7657/" that measures power
> > consumption might have been discussed on the list before but the same
> > folks now offer a more sophisticated model:
> >
> > http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7acf/
> 
> I'm curious what the major differences between these two are.  The
> former costs $129.00, the latter $24.99.  Is it that the Watt's UP!
> model records and stores info whereas the Kill'O'Watt merely displays
> the current stats?

The killawatt device just displays accumulated power use and wouldn't
provide any kind of histogram.

The more expensive device has a USB interface and an accompanying
program to record and display power usage. The included program only
runs on Windows but presumably if the USB port data could be monitored
on a Linux system something similar could be created.

-Alex

P.S. To come up with meaningful power usage for UPS sizing you would
want to drive the load as hard as possible.

> 
> And, does anyone know of something like this that measures 220VAC as
> well?  (I'd really like to know what my stove and clothes dryer cost
> me :)
> 
>