I have often wondered just how much power we use and more importantly, how much it costs.

When I was given the Energy Kit to review, I was looking forward to seeing the results. Things got off to a slightly tricky start but not through any fault of the Energy Kit - my girlfriend managed to lose the instructions out of the window! As I watched it fall, I thought, what next?

After Googling the product, I found the Energy Kit website. Luckily there was a large green button in the bottom right hand corner of the homepage labelled “START”, along with a statement that it would only take five minutes to set up the kit. Five minutes? Ok...... I decided to take it at its word and time it!

0.0 – All hardware was out of the box and on the sofa next to me.
0.01 – Click through to the setup page.
0.02 – First hurdle – a username and password were required. This should be emailed to you when you purchase the product. I realised that I had not actually received mine – most likely due to the fact that I had not “purchased” the kit in the traditional way. Nevertheless, the guys at Alertme, via PI, sent me my logon details very quickly.
0:10 – Next up are the safety notices. These are not long and definitely worth reading.
0:30 – Connecting the Hub – after scrabbling around with the cables behind the sofa, it was a simple matter of plugging the hub in. It emitted a lovely range of colours – unexpected and rather nice.
0:35 – Authorising the hub started off easily enough - just enter in the hub number and wait for Alertme to authorise itself….
2:00 – BUT, this took longer than expected – indeed, eventually the system timed out.
At this point I had to stop the clock. Something went wrong at the authorising stage which meant that I could no longer log into the website. This continued for a good few days. Fortunately PI got in touch with the Alertme guys (again – sorry and thanks!) and some advice was swiftly forthcoming. After fiddling about a bit (read unplugging things and turning them on and off!) systems were all ready for the go.......
So, to re-start:
2:00 – A new update installed automatically.
2:30 – The final installing/authorising page had a “think” and then....
2:45 – Whoop! Onto the transmitter set up! The casing is easy to pull apart when pressure is applied to the right points. I was then instructed to remove the battery tabs so that the green light turned on – sorted!
2:55 – Connected the meter reader to the transmitter. Again, simple!
3:00 – Attach the meter reader. This was a case of just clamping the reader to one of the meter cables.
3:15 – Had a quick check to see if there were any other accessories – there weren’t!
3:25 – System started configuring accessories.........
3:35 – System finished configuring accessories...
3:37 – Setup completed.
3:40 – Personal dashboard was now activated.

So, 4 mins really, give or take user error and the online systems behaving themselves!
I was all set up! What next?! I decided to check out the Video Tutorials and Guides section of the website. It was then that I realised that the meter reader had not been recognised by the hub. This may have been down to the fact that I hadn’t connected the reader to the right cable – it must be clamped to the live or neutral cable, not (as I had done) to the combined mains cable.
The meter then took a few minutes be identified. After that it was a quick trip to the dashboard! The power reading alternated between 222W and 404W. I found that I was able to be notified by SMS or email when energy usage goes above or below set levels – the defaults are 1000W for the former and 100W for the latter. What is also really useful is the “How am I doing?” function which tells you how much energy you have used “today” converted into pounds/pence. Energy costs more than I thought, damn!
At the time of writing I have been using the energy kit for a week. In that week we’ve used 8.75 kWh and spent £0.87! Worryingly, today’s use of energy is running at 23% more than expected, but that is most likely due to the fact that I’ve been running rather a lot of gadgets as I transfer to my new laptop. What is really interesting is to see the direct effect that this use has on the overall cost of energy. It’s not something that you can usually ascertain, we simply go by the quarterly electricity bill and have no idea how this is broken down. This energy kit is great for seeing when you use the most energy, thus allowing you to identify the culprits and adjust electrical usage accordingly.

This is a product for the mid to long term and in my opinion, can be used very effectively to cut down on unnecessary energy cost. Our biggest use of energy occurs at 6am, unsurprisingly when the boiler comes on and during the evening when generally we are home with a lot of electrical implements on (TV, computers, washing machine, dishwasher, oven etc). Therefore we are going to look at the way we use these item to cut down on unnecessary overuse. This kit may well turn out to be invaluable.

On a final note, I just wanted to say that the support these guys offer appears to be second to none. Not only are there the usual FAQs and email contact options online, but there is a forum, a myriad of tutorials and guides and rather interestingly a live chat option that is available from 8am to 8pm. I have not had cause to use it yet but would assume that a response would be fairly swift and helpful. Oh yes, and they’re on Facebook and Twitter!

The Alertme Energy Kit costs £49.99 plus a £1.99 per month subscription (annual subscription get 10 months for the price of 12)
See www.alertme.com for more information or to purchase.