OWL Review

Typical price:

£50

We like:

The price; the battery life; the relatively clear display; that it's on sale at B&Q

We don't like:

The fiddly interface; that it's ugly; that it has no memory; that there is no computer hook-up

SmartPlanet judgement:

Despite a head start on its rival energy monitors -- DIY Kyoto's Wattson and the Efergy Meter -- the OWL is starting to look dated. The Wattson wins on design and the ethics of its manufacture, while the Efergy trumps it by including a crucial memory feature for looking at your electricity history. On the plus side, the OWL does do the job in an unremarkable but fine fashion, and you can easily pick one up at B&Q.

Score:

Contact:

Nice Car Company at http://www.theowl.com/

Being first isn't all it's cracked up to be. The OWL was the first-ever gadget to show your real-time electricity consumption around the house, appearing first in Oz as the Cent-a-meter, then as the Electrisave in the UK and now reborn as The OWL.

Despite the new monicker, it's still essentially the same energy-monitoring gizmo that first appeared way back in 2004. It shows. There are three alternatives to the OWL -- DIY Kyoto's £150 Wattson, the £40 Efergy Meter and the £40 Eco-eye -- and each brings something more to the party, be it a slicker design or an ability to track your electricity usage and accompanying carbon emissions over time.

Getting the OWL installed is pretty simple. Take the supplied wireless transmitter and clip it round a cable coming out of your electricity meter -- trust us, you don't need to be a sparkie -- and switch on the main display unit. You now have a little monochrome screen showing how many watts, pounds or tonnes of CO2 you're expending at any given moment. So far, so easy, aside from the annoying quirk that you need your own tiny crosshead screwdriver to get the bundled batteries into the transmitter. And the cryptic and fiddly interface.

Yep, the interface isn't great. The main problem is changing basic settings, such as the price you're paying for electricity or the currency (a delightful process that involves holding down the mode and alarm button simultaneously, using the arrow key to flip through the options, pressing mode again, and pressing mode a second time to indicate you're finished. It's not fun -- you'll need the manual to hand). On the plus side, the manual is fairly comprehensive and clear.

There is some other good stuff. You can wall-mount it with the included bracket, the battery life is much better than the Wattson and will last for a couple of weeks rather than a day, and the display uses nice clear block characters to tell you if you're putting a strain on the national grid or deserve an eco halo. Other nice to-haves are a temperature display, a humidity display and an audio alarm for high energy use, though none is particularly useful. More importantly, the OWL's easy to buy on the high street as you can pick it up at B&Q.

Compared to its rivals on features, however, the OWL doesn't look too hot. There's no memory function for seeing your electricity consumption over time, no connection to a PC so you can offload and track your energy use, and the gadget itself is butt ugly. We're ambivalent about its use of batteries. While the simpler design means you can run this for a fortnight or thereabouts on battery power alone -- the Wattson would be lucky to get through a day -- there is no built-in rechargeable battery. Instead, you either need to buy three brand new batteries (not very green) every fortnight or regularly swap in rechargeable AAs.

We were very impressed with how comprehensively OWL's parent company answered our questions about manufacturing. OWL's owned by 2 Save Energy Plc, which works with Hong Kong-based company Integrated Display Technology, who have the OWLs built in the Guangdong region of China.

Ethics and eco creds are good by gadget standards. The factory's ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 certified -- 14001 is the respected environment-focussed series of standards. The OWL's team also visit the factory twice every three months, and they're sending in auditors using Sedex to inspect working conditions in April -- plus, the company is looking to offset the OWL's supply chain in the near future. This is all pretty impressive for a tech company.

So despite the lack of cute features like memory and PC hook-up, there's plenty to like here, predominantly the price, ethics and clear display. The biggest bonus, however, turns out to be the least exciting: you can pick one up from your local B&Q.

Score breakdown:

 

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