Showing posts with label eco-friendly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eco-friendly. Show all posts

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Belkin Conserve Valet F7C008q Energy-Saving USB Charging Station Review

Belkin Conserve Valet F7C008q Energy-Saving USB Charging Station
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I really like this charger, we brought it down to a small conference and set it up in the conference office. We configured its four ports with two iPhone cables and the included mini-USB and micro-USB cables. I think it is fair to say that the device was a hit - people could put a phone of almost any stripe on the charger. Over the course of the conference, we charged maybe a dozen different types of phones (and even a MiFi) without any issues.
The one problem was the "automatic" timer. As it turns out, it's just a timed 4.5 hour switch - not some kind of smart system that detects current draw. So, if someone puts a phone on it and turns on the charger, it will go off in 4.5 hours - which is fine - unless someone else shows up two hours later and adds their phone (which will only get a 2.5 hour charge). As a result, we had a lot of phones that would not get a full charge because the device had shut off and no one had realized they needed to turn it back on. The indicator light is very, very dim (perhaps part of the energy savings?), so it's not very noticeable from a simple glance if the unit is on - you really have to look at the power light.
It's a good device, but its limitations should be resolved in the next iteration with an option to turn off the power-saving feature or to change the timer length to 8 or 16 hours.

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Belkin Conserve Valet - Energy Saving USB Charging Station (F7C008q)

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Friday, July 20, 2012

Belkin Conserve Insight F7C005q Energy-Use Monitor Review

Belkin Conserve Insight F7C005q Energy-Use Monitor
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
The Belkin Conserve Insight is a very nice piece of hardware and has a number of advantages over the Kill-A-Watt. Firstly, there are three outputs.
1) lbs/CO2 per year (or month)
2) $/year (or month)
3) Watts
Both the CO2 and $ setting can be adjusted to account for the cost and CO2 intensity for your local utility.
Averaging. One very nice feature is that after 45 minutes, the Conserve Insight goes in to averaging mode and displays the projected CO2 and $ per year. This is excellent for appliances that are turned on and off like a laptop or a refrigerator. The Watt display, however does not average. It shows the realtime updates.
Location, Location, Location: The small display for the Conserve Insight is located on the end of a 5 foot long cord. This is much better than the Kill-A-Watt that requires you to crawl on your hands and knees to get a reading. Also, the Conserve Insight is very nicely styled and looks great on a desktop. The Kill-A-Watt is much more utilitarian.
Simple: The Conserve Insight is very simple and easy to use. Personally, I do not have any problem with the Kill-A-Watts ease of use, but I have had trouble explaining it to other people.
Range: The Insight Conserve goes down to a much lower range than the Kill-A-Watt. Whereas the Kill-A-Watt bottoms out at 1 Watt, the Conserve Insight goes down to 0.5 Watts. This is a great help when trying to understand the power usage of wall hanging bricks (AC/DC converters). I am always frustrated with the Kill-A-Watt reading either 0,1, or 2. With the Conserve Insight, I can see the difference between 1.0 and 1.2. Nice.
Limits.
There are a couple of things I do not like.
Jumping Display: The watt reading updates a little to frequently. When reading the power to my laptop it jumps quickly from 30 watts to 40 watts and back again. This makes it impossible to get a sense of average power consumption.
KWH?: There is no KWH measurement. However, this can be back calculated from the $ reading and the $/KWH setting you applied to it.Overall:
Highly recommend this product.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Belkin Conserve Insight F7C005q Energy-Use Monitor

Belkin Conserve Insight - Energy Cost Monitor (F7C005q)

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