The un-boxing

When the Wattson arrived I have to say the first thing that struck me was the size of the box. I had been expecting something slightly bigger and I am not sure why, I mean there are plenty of images all over the DIY Kyoto website showing it in relation to say a laptop or kitchen chair. The box just didn’t seem big enough to hold it, but when you break into the box you realize Wattson is about the size of a novel 17x11x5.5cm, 390 grams. The box also contains the transmitter which is about half the size of Wattson with its four AA batteries, the Wattson power supply, the micro-USB to USB cord and a Wattson sensor clip for connecting the transmitter to the mains. A quick setup guide and owners manual (printed with vegetable-based ink, no less) are also included.

	In the box Author Mug for scale

First Impressions

	About the size of a novel Author Comparison

After pulling out all the gear and setting aside the recycled cardboard packaging first thing I do is give the Wattson a once over, just a pickup and turnover a couple times reveals a nice ‘tinkling’ sound which I suspect is the motion sensor.

Otherwise Wattson is not very remarkable, with purposefully simple design lines and semi-transparent, ‘milk’ colored, outer shell.

The build quality is about what you’d expect for something made to be disassembled for recycling (as claimed on the website), so about par with other looks-first products. The transmitter (meant to be hidden away near the mains box) is also your standard black-box with four screws to gain entry to the battery compartment.

So far not very thrilling, but let’s see what adding a little electricity to the mix does for things.


Set up

First locate your mains box, if you have no idea what that is its time to call your electrician buddy over for a beer. If you do know what it is, but very quickly (upon examination) realize that there are far more than the two (one in and one out) wires common to a single phase set-up then you are probably like me and have a three phase system which needs two more sensor clips bought from the DIY Kyoto website.

	Transmitter and sensors Author three-phase

This piece of information is pretty vital especially when considering the cost (or added costs) in determining which brand home energy monitor to buy. To their credit, DIY Kyoto, make this perfectly clear on the website, it’s just a matter of ‘realizing’ it yourself so as to save some time and shipping costs.

Even if you are smart enough to check first and plan accordingly, actually getting the clips connected can still be a problem which the Wattson quick setup guide addresses on page one:

“Warning: Never pull on the electricity cables while fitting the clip, watch out for any exposed wiring and if you are unsure about what you are doing please contact a qualified electrician.”

I would add that even if it is plainly obvious which wires to attach the sensors to and your electrician buddy has assured you that the picture you sent to him (photo-shopped to show you know which wires need to be used) is accurate; actually getting the clips to cooperate may require the bravery of an electrician. Wrenching around on 40 Amp wires is… un-nerving.

Once the sensors are in place you just need to plug them into the transmitter box, plug Wattson into the power supply and go to the DIY Kyoto website to download the Holmes software, simple.

Wattson

	Sittin' pretty DIY Kyoto Chair for scale

Is a receiver, it gets the signal of how much current is coming into your house wirelessly by the sensors and transmitter over by the mains box; basically Wattson shows you how much electricity you are using in five ways. How Wattson shows the data is important, because ultimately that is what this is all about, if you do not know how much electricity you use in real time, then changing your habits is more difficult.

A plugged in Wattson is a much more interesting Wattson. The semi-transparent white surface hides a bright red digital display which jumps to life with the press of the single ‘mode’ button at Wattson’s top. The mode button allows you to scroll through four options for visualizing your energy use; numbers mode, colours mode, numbers and colours mode, and night mode (low energy colors only).

The fifth mode is selected by rocking Wattson forward or backward to activate a motion sensor and change the readout from watts to projected annual cost of electricity at current usage level.

Wattson is not just sitting there on your window sill looking pretty; it is also recording all the usage data displayed (up to 30 days worth) so you don’t have to have it constantly plugged into your computer. When you do get curious (and you will) you just take Wattson over to your computer and use the micro-USB to USB plug to start down the path of real understanding.

Holmes

Is the name given to the analytical software offered for free download at the DIY Kyoto site, made to work with the internal memory of the Wattson monitor.

	Some explaining to do Author Thats right 2800 watts at 3am! Holmes software screen capture.

First you will need to register at the DIY Kyoto site where you choose a screen name and you can upload a picture, this is all for a future expansion of the Holmes online environment where communities of people can share information in an attempt to drive competition (still waiting for a critical mass of subscribers before this option gets going though).

The Holmes program allows you to set your specific currency and cost per kilo watt hour (based on your last electricity bill) which is also important for getting accurate readings from the Wattson real-time display.

Once Holmes has downloaded your data from Wattson, graphs of your personal data are generated based on energy, power, cost and CO2. You are also able to ‘zoom in’ on time periods such as by month, day and hour.

This is where things get interesting and you can begin to pick apart where your energy use might be improved.

Verdict

I currently use Wattson set up across from my work desk, so I tend to glance at it often and can instantly see, either by the numbers or colors, what is going on. Quickly enough I realized that running my laptop (along with all the other power supplies plugged into that power-strip) consumes about 75 watts an hour. Not bad (I thought), until I checked to see just what fraction of that 75 watts was going into heating up power supplies connected to un-used cameras, cell phone chargers and printer. About 30 watts just in heat per hour! That’s a substantial saving right there; thanks Wattson.

	Good looks, Author nice conversation starter.

Next one was revealed by the much more analytical Mr. Holmes; the refrigerator. It seems that despite having a rather new frig, every 60 minutes the compressor kicks on for a 20 minute, 20 watt chill down. I’m no refrigeration specialist but that sounds a little too frequent to me, I’ll have to check into that one.

A less surprising find was the astronomical use of energy for cooking with electricity. I have known for some time that cooking with fire (gas or even a wood stove) was a more efficient use of resources, but when you can see that the oven uses 1200 watts for 30 minutes to get up to 200 degrees, or that each switch of the stove top dials adds 100 watts makes you rethink the phrase ‘up in smoke’.

In the beginning I constantly used Wattson in the Watts mode, seeing how much energy I used, but an interesting feature of Holmes is the ability to target a set amount of energy used per year by cost and let the LED lighting feature of Wattson show you whether you are on target or using too much.

If you are using more than your goal, then the lights display red, if you are averaging your goal then purple, and if you are projected to be saving more than the goal, then blue. This second layer of information is useful and I find it a smart way to make Wattson a more interesting product to have sitting in the living room.

In general I have found Wattson and Holmes to be quite useful, a major stumbling point for many would-be buyers, however, will be encountered well before they ever get a chance to use this product. The price for Wattson is now £99 for the single-phase compatible model (£120 for two additional sensor clips needed in the three-phase model) before shipping. This is about 50-100% more expensive than other less ‘design-oriented’ models currently available. DIY Kyoto has reported that on average a buyer of the Wattson monitor can save 20% a year on electricity. That’s a good thing because you’ll need to find some way to justify the expense to your significant other.

	Power supply Author Close up

On the matter of build quality I have had only one issue; Wattson’s power supply.

The plug itself is of expected quality, however a design feature of Wattson is the ability to tilt and orient it horizontally or standing up, but when moving Wattson invariably the power supply plug works its way out enough to lose contact.

Latter in the day you will see a message come across Wattson’s display informing you that the battery is dying as it has been totally discharged while you thought it was safely plugged into the wall, annoying.

While writing this review I received a newsletter update from DIY Kyoto that the source code for Holmes will be made public thus allowing programmers to add features.

I’m interested to see what some ingenious coders come up with because as good as Holmes is he has some tough competition coming into the market from some pretty big name developers (Google) and could do with some smart expansion packs.

In the end DIY Kyoto have a nice product in this Wattson and Holmes package. The personal savings are great (hoping I can also realize 20%), but a major factor in the end is that increased efficiency means less waste and needless pollution, so you and the environment benefit from less burned coal or natural gas, win-win.


Update: Battle of the boilers here.

The model used in this review was donated by an independent third party.