Owl USB CM160 Electricity Monitor Compatible with Windows 10

Easy to set up despite my have 2 phases into the house ( one for a Granny Flat) so needed an extra sensor. Had the system up and running within 15 mins. I have it running on a PC with Windows 7 64 bit....works fine despite some people saying the software will not run on the 64 bit Windows 7. I had more trouble trying to get the software to run on my old XP Pro laptop.Software is a little clumsy to start with but soon got used to it. It could probably do with a rewite once all the problems have been reported.Seems more sensitive than I had been lead to believe ...which is good... and I have no real complaints at all ....would recommed it ....It is not as difficult to set up as a few reviewers have implied, so do not be put off by a couple of bad reviews. Although I did need a second sensor for the other phase I'm wondering if the system would work OK with just one sensor on the common neutral cable? as the sum of the currents in both phases must return through this cable?....will try it and if it works will post here again ....would save the cost of additional sensors unless you need to monitor each phase seperately.

Lets get this straight - this device works and would have been just what I wanted but I have PV installed and that stops it working except at night. Because I generate electricity this confuses the Owl making it useless for measuring consumed electricity which was why I bought it. Fair enough but I have re-read all the advertising blurb and this fact is not mentioned. When I contacted the company they were very open and said straight away that it was the wrong one, they then tried to sell me their latest product which measures consumed and generated electricity and which costs considerably more, I declined. The company should explain in their advertising what each product will and will not do. They have not offered to take this unit back nor have they offered any form of compensation. DO NOT BUY FROM THIS COMPANY UNLESS YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT THE PRODUCT SUITS YOUR PURPOSE.

This seemed to be a good way of having an at-a-glance view of my household total electricity consumption. The display is configurable to show average use in kWh, total consumption, greenhouse-gas equivalent, and current or total costs. Up to six tariffs can be entered, with operating times, so Economy7 type usage can be accomodated. The display also shows date, time, and temperature.Once set up, use is simple. There's a battery-operated transmitter device which clips round the mains cable by the fusebox, and a battery operated receiver/display unit which can be placed pretty much anywhere. If an energy-hungry device, such as an oven or a heater, is switched on, you can tell within seconds by the jump in the display reading. It measures total consumption rather than individual appliances, but turning on devices of known consumption and checking the display of the Owl to verify that the increase is recorded shows pretty good accuracy.The device itself works well, but oh, the software. It's awful. In use, it's clunky and very 'Windows 3' (yes, that old). When it works, it displays graphs that you can drill down to, to get a day by day, hour by hour, or even minute by minute profile of your household energy consumption. Spotting a huge spike in one of these hour-by-hour overnight graphs led me to discover that an immersion heater had been accidentally programmed to come on in the middle of the night.But the software is worse than temperamental. To download data from the display unit to the software, you connect the display unit via a USB cable, the monitor is recognised by the software, and data is downloaded automatically. Sometimes this works. Other times - most times - it just won't. It sits there with a message on screen saying it's waiting for data. Occasionally, it says that if the wait is taking too long, to press the 'check' button on the transmitter. That never works. I spent four hours recently trying to download data to the computer, trying different USB cables. The device says it's connected because the USB alert shows on the display unit, but no data transfer takes place. This appears to be a common problem.The major benefit of this Owl device should have been the ability to capture all its data for analysis, but it's now become impossible. I have tried the latest version of the software by downloading it from the Owl web site, but it's just as bad ; in fact, the latest version has been stripped of much of the functionality of the original (what Owl now call 'legacy' version) software.As a passive display of household energy consumption, it's functional and does the job. But if your requirement includes PC connectivity, forget it. It's hopeless. On the basis of this experience, I wouldn't buy another Owl product.