High electricity bills scaring you? 4 gadgets from Qubo, Wipro, Ohm to help save money

tech.hindustantimes.com:

This summer, you might be disappointed about having to fork out more than the usual amount for your electricity bill. You are not alone. With rising energy prices and increased equipment usage, this is inevitable. By understanding how much power each device in your home consumes, you can make informed choices to save money.

The trend of measuring power consumption at an appliance level was first popularized by Kill-A-Watt in the early 2000s in the US. Kill-A-Watt, which is word play for kilowatt, is a device that measures the amount of electricity used by various household electric appliances. All you need to do is plug the device into the wall outlet and then plug any equipment into the Kill-A-Watt and voilà – you get to see the amount of power drawn by the equipment in real-time. You could then measure the units consumed per hour and arrive at a number for the month. Unfortunately, this is not available in India and even if you manage to get hold of one, it is not compatible with the 220V used in Indian homes. Additionally, this requires some effort to manually measure each and every equipment and make calculations.

Also read: 10 Tech tips to lower energy bills and beat summer heat waves

Fortunately, there are several WiFi-enabled smart plugs with energy monitoring features available for purchase on Indian e-commerce websites. Several brands such as Qubo from Hero Group, TP-Link, Wipro, Havells and Philips offer a variety of these products at very reasonable prices compared to similar products sold abroad. Prices start at Rs. 699 for a 10A smart plug and Rs. 899 for a 16A version. While the 10A version is suitable for small appliances such as your laptop charger, kettle or television. The 16A version is suitable for large appliances such as geysers, microwave ovens and even air-conditioners. This is very convenient and simple to use and more accurate than the manual method.

My PC at home is on for several hours a day and I decided to check if that was causing my