Silly design lets it down big time. Had to return it.

I really wanted to get a good power meter that wasn't made cheaply in China, like the many £16 ones. I decided to go for German makes, so I purchased this one and the Gifort Power Meter.I read the many 1* reviews which were all due to the bad EU design which doesn't bode well with the UK plugs, but guess what, you can just use a power adaptor and then you can see the display really well. So for around £15 you get a really good German made power meter.I had a cheap power mains adaptor, splitter whatever they are called and it didn't cost me anything. So for the price I am really happy.

What can I say.. It probably does the job I bought it to do. Thought it was German from the BRENNENSTUL Company but is is just some cheaply made thing from China. But it is really badly designed.. The first thing you have to do is to open the battery compartment to remove the bit of plastic insulator..3 small LR44 batteries, immediately fly out and roll around on the floor. Absolutely stupid designed battery compartment makes it really fiddly to get them back in and the compartment closed without bending the electrodes, I was impressed that all the instructions were in English. Other bad design is that the socket is at the top and the display underneath, which means that the display is hidden by the cable from the appliance that you are testing.. Display is not back-lit so you have to shine a light under the cable to read it. The whole thing is quite wide which makes it difficult if another plug is next to it, depends on how far the sockets are apart.. if it's an extension lead, it needs two spaces to fit. Plus, the instructions say that the batteries will only last 3 months, although you can remove them when not in use to make them last longer..fiddly job, taking thoses batteries in and out..BUT it does seem to do what I wanted it to do which is to tell me how much power my CCTV system uses so I can buy the appropriate UPS to keep it running during power cuts.. I only needed the volts/amps/watts.. The rest of the functionality, I haven't tried. It is strange that the voltage reading is 246. it may be right, seems a bit high..Very good price and ultra fast delivery on Amazon Prime. If you don't mind it being fiddly and having to shine a torch under the cable to read the display and change the batteries every 3 months, I suppose it is a good enough item.. 3 stars because it works..

The UK version of this power meter has a square-pin BS1363 style socket oriented so that the cable always exits the UK plug directly covering the display. On the older PM230 meters it was the same but with more distance to the display so you could push the cable to one side. The newer meter may have better measurement, but good luck to anyone trying to read the display while the appliance is still plugged in.Engineering design: dix points. Practical/ergonomic design: nil points.

It's a useful item that seems to be accurate as far as I can tell. In reality once you have checked all your items it will probably sit in a cupboard but it satisfied my curiosity to find out the power consumption of items plugged in but not actually switched on, in other words how much the power adapter uses. Turns out, contrary to some scaremongers, that most of our items don't actually consume that much, maybe 0.1W to 0.9 W. Though obviously if you leave lots of items on (we don't) then it adds up. Interestingly Apple items don't seem to use anything in standby. One or two items were an issue seeing the display because the block of the adapter hung below the socket obscuring the display panel but we managed to just about see the result.