Review by Sherrye S. Fuentes:

I have had my Bye Bye Standby for several months and think it’s just GREAT. I only wish I could find additional outlet adapters to use with the remote control switch I got – it will accommodate up to three zones, but only comes with two outlet adapters. I am getting another set and will just keep one remote control upstairs and one downstairs for those nights I might forget to push the button before retiring. I need a couple more outlets so I can switch off my office equipment in one fell swoop. I haven’t actually measured how much energy I am saving, but I DO know that just powering off one printer alone will save 5-6 dollars a month, and we have 2 printers, 3 computers, and a fax. . We currently use BBSB to kill the juice going to the TV, VCR, & DVDs in two rooms, but can still leave the DVR on to record. It’s great and the remote works all over the house – I checked.

Review by A. Branson:

These things are great! I have purchased two sets, and have one remote at the front door, and one in the bedroom. The distance is pretty good, I tend to make sure I am close enough to hear the click sound made, when I turn things on and off. You can see that the remotes only have 3 switches on the front, but there is A/B/C/D on the back. On the units plugged into the wall, you select A-1/2/3 B-1/2/3 C-1/2/3 D-1/2/3, so by default you have have A set in the back and control three units, moving the back control to B allows you to control another set of three. I currently use it for my tv setup in the front, pc in the back, wireless router/internet box, and tv in back room.

This is the best power conservation hardware I could find, not to mention the awesome price. I know these will pay for themselves within a month or two!

Review by Edwin:

Excellent product, push the remote transmitter button and the surge protector switches off. Push it again and the surge protecter turns on. Will definitely save electricity by cutting power to devices that are always on standby.

Only problem with the unit I received was that initially the remote switch would not turn the surge protector on. I thought that I might have to return it, until I checked the frequency settings for the remote switch and the surge protector. Switched them to match and the unit worked like a charm. It seems that the factory set settings did not match.

This highlighted a key feature of this unit. You can use one remote switch to control your entertainment system’s surge protector, and a seperate remote switch to control your PC system’s surge protector, OR you can use one remote to control two surge protectors.

Review by P. Colin McGraw:

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R28XHS2UX1OXCI Studies suggest that 5% of America’s power usage is consumed up by “phantom load”, when devices that you turned off continue to consume at least some electricity. Turning power strips off cuts off “vampire” devices and prevents them from using electricity, but I tend to leave my power strips on because they’re hidden under a desk or behind furniture or sometimes even in a different room.

That’s where the Belkin Conserve power strip comes in, offering a convenient way to turn your power strips off with a remote switch that you can mount on top of your desk, near your TV couch, or by a light switch. You can even configure a single switch to power off multiple power strips, or just have each strip operate on its own frequency with its own switch.

I’ve been using my Conserve for about two months, and it’s worked flawlessly the entire time. I even tested how well it shut the power to my devices off and, sure enough, my Kill A Watt instrument showed that power usage dropped to near 0 watts. What impressed me most about that number is how little power the Conserve apparently uses waiting for a signal from the switch.

In my case, I ran the numbers, and using my Belkin Conserve will more than pay for itself within the first year of use, and save me hundreds of dollars over my equipment’s lifetime.

If you have a situation where you need a power strip in an out of the way place, then buy this product! It’s only marginally more expensive than other power strips, and chances are that you’ll make up the price difference within only a few months of use.

The Belkin Conserve is one of my biggest recommendations on Amazon.

Follow Up: FYI to those concerned about the remote battery, I’ve been using for about six months and the battery original battery still works! Also, as others noted, the battery is easy to find in stores and is as easily replaced as TV remote batteries are.

Review by Mark Conge:

Works perfectly! I’m sure I’ll start seeing savings right away since I have plethora of equipment. Setup is simple, just plug the TV i it into the controlling outlet and then the DVD player, xbox, etc… into the switching outlets. Now when I power off/on the TV everything shuts off/on with it. The nice thing about the power strip is that it has a couple of always-on outlets for recording devices – so they don’t lose the date and time. This is a well thought out and simple product.

Review by R. Gressick:

If you want something to help you save a few buck on your energy bill while also prolonging the life of Equipment, this is the tool for you.

I had an idea what this SmartStrip could do but i really wanted to see it for myself. This guy is as simple as it sounds and just as convient.

You have 1 outlet that you plug your switching device in. The switching device is the device that when you turn on or off turns everything else on or off. You also have 2 Always ON outlets (for DVR boxes or Broadband Modem, etc). And 4 “Controlled” outlets, 1 of which is an extra wide one. Now, the 1 outlet for the switching device is an Always ON outlet.

There is a little knob on the side for helping you tweek the switching setting that power off everything else when you put the main device into a low power state or off. Because some things draw power even when turned off so you may need to tweek it.

I bought this to try it out at work. If you want something to definitely help at home or at the office, this is perfect. At work, i had my Laptop at the switching port. I plugged the Monitor, the Speakers, the Desk Lamp, my cell chargers, any and all accessories into the controlled ports. I tweeked the knob on the side so that when I put my laptop into Standby, that it will also shut off everything else as well. To tweek it, you must put the computer into Standby mode and adjusted the knob until all the devices turn off.

This is great because the moment i shutdown the computer at night, it turns everything off and i don’t have to forget about turning anything off. All that littles of electricity its saving is great.

You could easily use it at home. You can have it setup where your TV is the switch, your DVR is in the Always ON, your DVD, VCR, Game Consoles, Stereo, Home Theater, etc are all plugged into the Controlled Ports, So that the moment you turn the TV off, everything else turns off. No more nagging the kids to make sure they turned everything else, no need to round through remotes to make sure everything else is off.

The price is right as well, you are going to pay about the same price for something that also does about the same amount of Surge Protection, so why not get something that will save you in long running cost as well. It could pay for itself in the first year alone.

Review by Sean P. Logue:

Now this is a really interesting product. I have several individual energy monitors that will tell me how much power the device (or several devices on a power strip) are using. But, the real heavy-hitters aren’t small appliances, they are the large ones like central air conditioning and electric clothes dryers. Plus, what are all those lights I tend to leave on costing me? I just can’t tell that from an individual meter, and my power bill includes everything in the house, so I can’t narrow it down.

I investigated various solutions for monitoring how much power my home is using. There are a couple of them out there. They are pretty expensive (hundreds of dollars), and they need to be installed by an electrician (there’s a pretty big risk of death if you don’t know what you are doing).

When this one came along I was interested, but I figured it would be pretty similar to the other ones. Luckily, it differs in two important respects. It is easy to install, and it is much cheaper. Installation consists of putting a battery-powered transmitter on the outside meter. The meter doesn’t need to be opened, and it isn’t directly attached, so you won’t need an electrician. On my meter, which is electronic, it interfaces with it by blinking a light into a little port that is on the meter and reading the response. It works with mechanical meters as well, by sensing the little wheel turning inside the meter. I suspect this is more accurate than the type that connects directly to the power lines, as the meter is what the power company is basing your consumption and cost. I also like the fact that I can’t die from attaching it. The downside is that it has a battery that needs regular replacement. The manufacturer recommends lithium AAs for the outside sensor, and those aren’t cheap. I’m not sure how long it lasts, but I have several wireless outdoor temperature sensors that go at least a year on a set of standard alkaline batteries, so if it lasts a couple of years on lithiums I’ll be happy. Still, it would have been nice of them to throw a set of batteries in the box, even if they had to raise the price a bit to do so.

The display unit, which goes inside and gets information from the wireless sender unit outside on the power meter, is very clear and easy to use. It displays the current energy use along with the month to date cost (you tell it what your power rate is during setup), along with the outside temperature. The amount of money the power is costing is a lot more useful than how many kilowatts are being used, so I was pleased to see that it does the calculation for me. The only hard part here is that you have to do some math from your last bill to determine how much each kilowatt is costing you, but that wasn’t especially hard to calculate. They do tell you how to do that in the instructions, but my bill didn’t look much like their example so I had to puzzle it out.

One thing I really wished for is a computer interface with graphing software. I wasn’t expecting it at this price point, but that would be a great feature. Nothing beats looking at a color-coded graph for seeing where your peak electrical use is happening, and what is causing it. Tie that in with outside temperature, and it is easier to determine how much power is going to the heating and cooling systems during seasonal changes. Maybe they’ll release a “pro” version that has that.

Overall, this is an interesting, easy to use, and reasonably priced item. If it helps you lower your energy bill even a little bit each month, it won’t be hard to justify the purchase. Plus, now I know that leaving my kitchen lights on all the time is costing me eight cents an hour!

Recommended.

Sean P. Logue, 2008

Review by Charles Evans:

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AGE43H483VMW I a very impressed with the Black and Decker Power Monitor. It is a perfect tool in helping you determine how much energy you are using each day. While I would not buy this device in order to “save” money (it will take many months for your to recoup the cost on the energy monitor) however, it is a great way to fid out how much energy your house uses.

Examlple – when my air condition comes on I see that I pull an additional 3000W which translates into about 0.20 cents per hour. Leaving my kitchen lights on is about 200W or about 2 cents an hour. The Black and Decker Power monitor makes it easy to track your energy footprint and what are your big energy items.

If you want to save “money” my suggestion is to replace your incandescent lights with flourescent (or however it is spelled) this will save you about 30%. However, if you want to find modest savings while reducing your unneeded energy consumption this is the item for you. 5 stars

PS – installation is not “Easy” but it can be done with the use of some trial-and-error… budget about an hour.

Review by J. B. Lehrer:

I purchased a Smart Strip and use it to power my PC, monitor, printer, speakers and other peripheral devices. I find that it performs quite well. My PC is plugged into the control outlet, so the other outlets turn on when the PC is turned on. When the PC turns off, the other outlets shut down, so I no longer worry about shutting off my monitor, printer, or speakers. Sometimes there is a few minutes of delay before the peripherals power down, but this sensitivity can be tweaked with a setting on the Smart Strip – it is adjustable because some devices continue to draw a small current even when powered off, which can be enough current to keep the other outlets from shutting down. But with some adjustments, it can be set to work in most situations. The energy savings/environmental benefits make this a worthwhile purchase, but the convenience factor of not having to power on or off my devices just adds value. I plan to buy another one for my stereo system.

Review by Jen F:

I love the concept of this item. I really like being able to shut down all my items with the touch of one button. It makes a lot of sense. It did take some tweaking though to get the product to work properly for me. It took several days of making adjustments each time we turned our computer on and off before it worked properly. You just have to keep adjusting the little wheel until it works. I read some reviews where people said it just did not work, I think they may not have given it enough time. After I got it right (within a few days), I had to adjust it one more time. Now it has worked fine for a month or two.

Review by J. Pawlowski:

At a little over 10 bucks for 8 of these, you can’t go wrong.

These are just your basic CFLs, at the 2700 kelvin temperature range. That means they’re about the same shade as your basic ordinary 60W incandescent bulb. A pale yellow white, not pure white (5100 Kelvin), or daylight (around 6300 Kelvin).

Pure white or daylight CFLS cost more because the phosphors in them are more expensive, but they do have the advantage of being more natural light, rather than imitating the poor quality light of an ordinary light bulb.

So if you’re thinking of upgrading to CFLs these bulbs are a great deal to start from. But do take advantage of the technology & get a higher quality light at a higher color temperature for some of your areas, & enjoy better quality light, rather than just using CFLs that imitate the poor quality light of old fashioned light bulbs.

Winter depression can be triggered by lack of natural light because of less hours of daylight, & more cloudy, overcast days in winters. In northern climates when it’s cold, people stay inside more, use heavy insulating window curtains, further reducing their exposure to natural light. 5100K-6700k CFLs help with winter depression by exposing you to more natural light. Colors look more rich & vivid. Things look more cheery. It’s even easier to read under natural light.

I find I can read just as easy under a 4-watt 5100k CFL than a 13 watt 2700k CFL.

The backlight in your LCD display that you’re probably reading this from is probably a 5100k-6700K bulb.

Look at the white areas on the screen & then look at your lighting in the room. Doesn’t that ordinary light bulb or 2700K CFL look a lot more yellow by comparison?

Review by George B.:

Things to look on the package:

1. Kelvin temperature (K): The only accurate measurement for the kind of light or “color” of light you’ll get. 2700K is pretty close to the “warm” incandescent we are all used to, 4100/4200K is known as “Cool White” (you might look “ghostly under that) and 5,000+ is the daylight/sunlight. If the lamps do not have the K designation, do not buy them – they are the cheaper variety since establishing the K temp. costs more.

2. Lamp Life (Hrs): The life of a light bulb is the MEAN life, that is at the stated hours HALF of them will be dead and HALF of them will still be working. Life can be affected by many factors, one being how many times a day you turn them on and how long they stay on. As a rule, the more on/off’s, the less they last.

3. Initial lumens: If it is not listed try another brand. For the typical 60W equivalent it ranges between 700 and 900 lumens. Try for 800+ In general the highest the K temp. (see #1 above) the higher the lumens.

4. Make sure you read what they say about DIMMERS, as well as photocells, timers, etc. Avoid costly surprises.

5. Make sure they are rated for outdoor use – if that’s where you want to install them. The environment’s temperature has a lot to do with the CFL performance.

6. Buy as few as you can first and redo, say one room. See how YOU like it (allow 90 seconds warm-up time). If you are a male, have your female with you…she might have some objections you can’t even think about!

HAPPY HUNTING!