It was decided many moons ago to purchase one of those energy monitoring devices, mainly in the hope of identifying those products that are wasteful sources of energy around the home. However in searching for the best one to buy, the weeks went past and the monitor was never bought. Then eon, our energy supplier, came along with a good deal; as you're a customer we'll send you a Current Cost energy monitor for free. 

Now in my research these Current Cost monitors are the bees knees and, before the arrival of the eon offer, it was going to be one of their products that was going to be purchased. And now eon was offering one for free! I had grand ideas - wall mount it (it comes only with a stand), get it 'net connected so I could see the power usage online... Wey, hey, bring it on! So the 'order' was placed.

Weeks past and no monitor arrived. Then an e-mail from eon saying that they've had so many requests there's going to be six to eight week delay. No worries I'll wait.

Three weeks later the postie knocks on the door, the monitor had arrived. Opening up the box it looks a grand device - would've been better in white to better match the room decor but heck it's a freebie so I can live with it.

Job one: to wall mount it. This involved a bit of drilling in the stand through what looked suspiciously like positions for two wall mounting holes, then a bit of filing to allow the power wire, and USB leads to pass, and Bob's your uncle - one wall mountable Current Cost monitor. In goes the power brick lead, on went the super strong clamp around the main power in cable, and within a minute the device was tuned. The readings started coming through...

Job two: to try the Current Cost to Pachube hack, and bingo got belting results straight onto the 'net. Not wanting to leave a PC running 24/7 to do the data transferring onto the 'net, my next decision was to buy a Current Cost Bridge device to do the dirty work. But that could wait till later.

Everything was looking rosy. And it was. For about two weeks. That's when the next door neighbor knocked on my door asking if he could have a look at my energy monitor as his newly arrived eon unit didn't seem to be working properly. No worries - we both looked at mine, to discover mine too was no longer working properly. The readings were all over the place.

It seems these Current Cost units have a bug. A big one. It transpires they pick up and show other sensor clamps, despite going through the tuning process, making the whole energy monitoring process a waste of time. My unit picks up next door's energy usage and adds it to mine thinking it's me using it, and his does the same adding my energy to his unit's calculations. Suffice to say with the status quo both units are now useless, unless that is you want to see the power going up on one refresh and down on the next ad infinitum:

I contacted Current Cost about the issue. Shortly after I received back a reply, the expected read off a sheet 'you must tune it in to your clamp sensor'. Err, I have done. So has the neighbor. Multiple times. And at different times. I re-contacted them to explain this, and back came another reply stating the details would be passed on. That was over two weeks ago, and as of the time of writing still no response.

So currently my Current Cost monitor is powered down. Permanently. No point in using it. Oh well it was free. And it was good whilst it lasted.