PowerCost Monitor - BLI 28000ER

I have been using the B&D meter which looks to be the same meter as the Blue Line, But I had an early model which was nothing but problems. Every time it gets damp or rains it would stop working and after 2 years playing with it trying to get it to work correctly I gave up and bought the latest Blue Line power cost meter, ordered on Friday afternoon and had it Sunday AM. Easy setup and it was raining most of Sunday through Wed. but it works great. It is nice to see that Blue Line on this updated unit made it more robust with the battery compartment sealing a whole lot better then the old one. I also Decided to order the Bridge Hub so I can plot the electric use with my smart phone or tablet. Make sure that if you buy a Hub to buy it from Blue Line. I made the mistake of getting a deal on one not knowing at the time that the Hubs had also been updated and after spending several hours trying to get it to work finally contacted Blue Line support and found out that the hubs that have a USB port on them are older and are not fully supported by Blue line partners, So I went ahead and bought the newest one (comes in a black box not white box like the old one) had it set up in no time and it works great so far. With the Bridge Hub the meter reads as low as 1 watt. My meter display will be showing .5 kw but the computer or smart phone will show . 599 watts making it easier to find what is drawing small amounts of power. I wish I had bought a hub 2 years ago when I first bought the Meter display. Blue Lines customer support is very good although you have to email them but after I sent my phone number to John he called the next day and had me quickly set up.

It was not very difficult to set up. I did so in the North East US in December while the snow was flying. I spent maybe 10 minutes outside and just a few minutes getting the transmitter to sync with the remote display.I purchased the Blue Line Innovations BLI 31100 PowerCost Monitor WiFi Gateway to get the readings to the People Power app for Android. That was easy to setup and configure as well. Great user interface in the app.The problem was that after 4 months the transmitting unit died. Battery replacement did nothing. I'm assuming maybe condensation or a leak somewhere in the casing caused the device to short out and/or fail.Sent an email to the manufacturer but did not hear anything back. I eventually went with the SmartThings hub and Aeon Labs DSB09104-ZWUS - Z-Wave Smart Energy Meter for a total of $125. Much happier with that product.

I should have known better than to buy this considering the ratings. The buttons on the receiver "thunk" with the feel and sound of a bull in a china shop. The latch that holds the sensor arm in place doesn't actually do anything - the sensor arm can be pulled out and pushed in just as easily with the latch closed as with it open. I have a GE i210 meter with a polycarbonate housing. The instructions for placing the sensor over the meter's optical port are incorrect. The instructions state to place the "dark LED" on the sensor arm directly over the optical port on the meter. Fail! The sensor is designed to look at the infrared LED on the i210 meter, which is the dark one (not the clear one). On the sensor, the "dark LED" sends out an infrared beam just like on the meter. Therefore, you must align the CLEAR infrared receiver on the sensor with the DARK infrared transmitter on the meter - and it must be spot on. If there is the slightest variation, the sensor won't see the infrared pulse. I had to readjust the sensor's position several times to get the thing to work. Also, The instructions speak of entering the meter's "Kh" and "Kt" values. It calls these "power factors", which is the wrong terminology to use. "Power factor" is an unrelated electrical term. The instructions also state that "Kh" is also referred to as "Kt". Wrong again. These are different values that are NOT always the same. For example, the Kh on my meter is 1.0 while the Kt is 10.0 - clearly not the same. It doesn't help that the sensor is made of cheap plastic that feels like it might snap apart at any moment. When it is working, it appears reasonably accurate even though the resolution is only 0.1 kW (100 watts) so if you turn on a 30-watt load, you won't see it unless 30 watts is all it takes to "round up" to the next 0.1 kW in which case you might mistakenly believe the 30-watt light bulb is drawing 100 watts. At best, this device is little more than a temporary novelty. You can get the same information by reading your meter and timing the disc revolutions.UPDATE: I have lowered my initial rating of 2 stars to 1 star. The sensor continued to lose "sight" of my meter's optical pulse. Sometimes it would work for minutes, hours, or even days before it would stop reading and go to sleep mode. I kept having to go outside and re-position the sensor slightly. If it doesn't see the meter's "pulse", it just shows zero usage and doesn't add to the total kW or estimated cost and will eventually go to sleep. I really wanted this to work and gave it an honest chance - it's a great idea, just a cheaply made, poorly executed product. I am returning it.

Our house seems to use more power than our neighbors, so we got this to try to figure out what is going on. We got this version of the product (with handheld display) because we didn't want to buy the WiFi bridge if we could get by.Installing the meter monitor was relatively easy. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I had to adjust it (line it up with the meter LED) and reset it several times during the first few days when it would seem to lose connection with the meter. However, it has been working fine for the last 3 weeks, as far as I can tell. We are in Utah, and I was worried about it in the cold and snow. But all seems OK.The handheld thing didn't work too well for me. Having it in the house was too far away from the meter. Having it in the garage close to the meter, it was inconvenient to watch. And it was difficult to make sense out of what I was seeing. There seems to be a lag between when your turn on a high wattage appliance and when you see the numbers go up. It didn't give me enough useful info over the course of a few minutes or hours to figure out where all the power is going. So I don't use the handheld display anymore. I bought and installed the WiFi bridge a few days later. I'm happier with that (see separate review).