A lot of the reviews here are for the P3 International P4460 Kill-A-Watt Monitor. I purchased the P4480 on a gold box special and am writing this review under the P4480's review page.
I received the P4480 and opened the package and the first thing that I noticed is that it has a battery door. I opened it and saw that it takes 3xAAA batteries. These allow you to program and review the unit with it being unplugged from the wall. The backlight is orange and bright. It can be set as a night light to come on during the evening hours. The unit needs to be set with the correct time and day before it will function correctly.
This model is not exactly what I was expecting. I thought it would be a kill-a-watt monitor with all the functions of analyzing your power consumption of an appliance or device. It turns out that it is mainly an advanced on/off timer that happens to measure voltage, amperage, and watts too. You push the volts or amps or watts buttons to scroll between measuring those values respectively. You can not enter your utilities companies KWh pricing and have it calculate your daily, weekly or yearly spending. It doesn't have a high and low points review or and kind of data logging. It only provided real time feedback of current energy conditions. This is not very helpful in analyzing the overall cumulative energy use of something.
I recently had a lightening strike and my electrical panel needed changing out according to my electrician. The lights would dim and brighten depending on what appliances would turn on and off (ie. the A/C unit). I was interested to use the P4480 to test amps and voltages of things as the fluctuations occurred until my electrician could get out and change out the panel. It was helpful for this, although I found using my electrical multimeter better for doing the same thing
I really don't need an on/off timer that cost this much. The P4480 does provide amps/watts readings which my multimeter cannot provide although you can purchase other multimeters to measure this inexpensively. I will be returning this and purchasing a different model kill-a-watt monitor as I would like analyze my power usage for devices around my home. This one just doesn't do it. The description on Amazon is a little bit misleading and the reviews under this item are not just for the P4480 which is also misleading as the P4480 doesn't have the same features as the other models. P3 International P4480 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor with Electronic Graphic Timer
I had the original Kill a watt and enjoyed it very much. I was excited for this one because of all of its bells and whistles. Unfortunately the safety feature is a bit annoying. The product is rated for 15 amps, as are all of them. But this one has a safety feature that will shut the whole thing down if you exceed the 15 amps. Which I guess keeps me safe but there are a lot of things that suck a lot of power that, especially on start up, will suck more than 15 amps for a short period of time. This thing freaks, shuts down and just sits there beeping at you. I never got past this before I sent it back so I did not try the programming features. I would not recommend this one unless you are only interested in "vampire" power.
The UI is a little clunky, but this device does everything it claims to. Unfortunately, on day 5 it said my device was over current (45A) and failed to turn on. The appliance I had it on slowly ramps up when powering on (as opposed to something like a motor that spikes on power up) so I believe there is a design flaw in the P4480.
Update: Bought the P4460 EZ model and a separate timer. No problems when used on the same appliance.
The "safety" feature trips on practically everything with moving parts making it useless for fridges, heaters, washing machines and even some computers!
I'm unconvinced that my fridge draws 35A when the compressor starts but even if it did for a few milliseconds it couldn't be too hard to have some delay in the cutoff.
Poor implementation of a potentially useful product.
BEWARE -- TECHNICAL DETAILS ARE INCORRECT! AMAZON, PLEASE CHANGE!
I will say as an electrical timer, this product does work but I'm not reviewing overall usage of the product. Instead trying to point out for other potential buyers that this product is inaccurately being depicted in the description! It is missing a key feature that is available with almost every other Kill-A-Watt product yet the decription says it has this feature -- WRONG! Amazon's Technical Details say, "...Calculates electricity expenses by the day, week, month, or year... ". This is a great feature on other Kill-a-watt products (which I own) but not this one! As noted by a few others, this product does NOT have this function !!!! I have several other Kill-A-Watts that I use for this, so I can use this product as a simple timer but isn't that a little overkill, considering the price! Once again, this DEFINITELY DOES NOT offer the basic features of the other Kill-A-Watt products. I will say as an electrical timer, this product does work.
Amazon, Please change misleading description! Thanks! - Electric Consumption - Power Monitor - Kwh Meter - Energy Savings'
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