A guy came by the house yesterday evening. I thought he was here to slam me, sign me up with an alternate electricity provider against my will. They do that here.
But instead he was giving out free energy saving things. He was from BGE, formerly BG&E, Baltimore Gas and Electric. -- They had to get rid of the & because researchers in California showed that it could cause cancer.
He offered, free, and I think with installation included, water-limiting shower heads, LED lightbulbs. and Tricklestar Advanced Power STrips.
I've looked a little on the Tricklestar webpage and the Amazon reviews (the first ones that came up) and the same two things I didnt' understand, I still don't.
This is tier 1, or model TS1104 7-outlet.
1_ There is a slider switch for Threshold, low, medium, and high. I think this is the threshold at which the built-in circuit breaker trips. I asked him, Why not set it to high all the time. If I plugged it in, I must want to use it, and if that puts me over the medium limit, that's what I want. He said no, but if he were an EE he wouldn't be walking around with a handtruck and boxes of lightbulbs. So I'm asking you, What is the point of this?
2_ There are 2 outlets that are alwasys on, one that controls the remaining 4, in that when it's using current, it powers on the other 4 and when it's not, they're not . But what is suitable for being the control device? Don't most new devices use current all the time? Isn't that the whole reason people want to switch off the vampire current users? Are they saying even devices that use current all the time will have a change in current usage when "on" sufficient to be recognized by the strip, and thereby turn off the remaining 4. And what about the remaining 4 outlets? They will be turned off entirely, and don't most new devices have to be somewhat on all the time to preserve memory items? I have only one item that could be considered "new" and it's a soundbar for a TV. I presume it remembers its previous volume setting even when turned off, but if unplugged, wouldn't it forget it? sds
The wrappter includes examples. Always on would be a DVR or router or cable box or modem. Two of those, or more with a trust cube tap from the 1940's. For the Control Outles it suggests the TV or PC. (With so many people using laptops now, don't they lose their charge if not plugged in all the time? ) And for the switched items they suggest a DVD player printer, but my printer is wireless and in the other room. gaming console without HDD for some reason AV receiver Misc TV/PC peripheral. I do have a pair of external speakers for the desktop and they don't forget anything when unplugged. And I'll admit I don't always turn them off when I leave the computer. They don't use much when in use either, so is this the only place I can save a little electricity?
The strips are nice in that two outlets are speced far enough away to allow wall warts to be used. And if surge protection is damaged, it cuts power to the whole thing. Do other strips do that? But they have no on/off switch in case you want to turn everything off. Ironic, huh?
They do make some good-sounding products