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I got a new little gadget yesterday. It is called "Kill A Watt" and it is used to calculate how much energy a device you have plugged into it is using. I had a gift certificate from Amazon that I needed to spend, and I have been wanting one of these for work. At work I have been borrowing a home-made device that a voltmeter plugs into, but have been wanting something a little safer and less apt to shock or start a fire. I use it at work to calculate what size UPSs I have to buy for servers and desktops, but at home I figure I will just play around with it. I plugged it into my little laser printer, and idle it uses 6 watts, and printing it spiked over a whopping 600 watts. My desktop uses 4 watts when in sleep mode, and around 80 when actually running normally which is really good. I am really not sure where the watt rating on the powersupply comes from. I have not had a chance to try out my home theater equipment, but I am guessing it sucks down quite a bit even when turned off. If I leave it plugged in long enough it can even calculate kilowatt-hours for me so I can figure out how much just having stuff plugged in is costing me. Pretty neat little gadget. 3:26 PM | Comments [0]