I suppose it doesn't HAVE to be a function of a surge protector, specifically, but that certainly would be a good start.
Every month when I get my electric bill I find myself wondering where all my money is going. While the voltage is listed on many of my appliances, that doesn't make it easy for me to quantify the appliances' electricity usage come bill time. I'd like to be able to measure the individual monthly electricity consumption of every appliance/device in my home, and ideally, the subsequent economic impact on my bill. I propose that "they" should create a small adaptor (or surge protector) into which one can plug the appliance, that will have some kind of daily/weekly/monthly digital readouts of watts used and money spent.-- JT, Jun 01 2002 Google search http://www.google.c...n&q=plug+watt+meterabout 22000 of them [drew, Jun 01 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Baked- see link.
I've used one of these units, and while it's sort of interesting, they are a bit spendy, so you need to 'save' a good bit of electricity to pay for one.-- drew, Jun 01 2002 random, halfbakery