Power devices

The Laser Smart Power Meter Board is a neat combination of an LCD AC power meter with a four-way master-controlled AC output board. The board actually has six outlets: one always-on, one master and four slave outputs. When the load drawn from the master outlet falls below a user-configurable threshold (10W is the default), the four slave outlets switch off as one. By setting the threshold to 0W, the four slave outlets can become always-on outlets.

The Belkin Conserve Insight is a power meter that displays the current power usage of anything plugged into it in either CO2 production, watts used or cost of power over either a month or a year. The idea is that you plug it into commonly used devices to get an idea of actual power usage, whether your aims are purely green, purely financial or a little bit of both. The results in our tests were certainly eye-opening: one small home office at its absolute peak was using in excess of $400 worth of power per year.