It was at the Consumer Electronics Show that our esteemed editor Sarah (aka “monolysis”) tossed a power strip at me and said, “Review that, would you?” And my response was, “Sure.”
The HiSaver Energy Saving power strip consists of a nice, heavy-duty power strip with five outlets, surge protection, a 14-gauge cord with a grounded, 15-amp rated, three-prong plug and a motion detector, which is a rather elegant solution by HiSaver America (http://www.hisaver.com/) to conserve energy.
Outlet 1 is for the PC or laptop, and a switch indicates which is plugged in. Outlet 2 can be switched to “always on” if a peripheral that you always want on — such as a network printer, modem or router — is plugged into it. Outlet 3, 4 and 5 are energy-saver outlets.
The motion detector is sensitive. The range is up to 13 feet straight ahead and 6.5 feet on each side, which is something that may not work in every set up — certainly not in mine — especially with two curious cats who learned how to work the darned thing. I ended up playing with it a bit before setting it pointing directly up, which worked perfectly as it only caught motion when I sat in my chair and pulled myself up to the desk.
Most users have a PC, monitor, printer, some speakers, maybe a USB hub and a modem hooked up on their system. If you are like me, when I turn off my PC, the printer, monitor, speakers and USB hub still remain on, and in fact, they are all drawing a small amount of power as they lurk in vampire mode, ready to come to life when the PC is turned on again.
The HiSaver strip turns off everything that’s plugged into energy saver outlets if the motion detector doesn’t detect any motion after 10 minutes. So the PC is cranking away ... rendering, compiling, scanning for viruses, downloading the latest game/patch. What an idea, eh? I seldom remember to turn off my monitor, printer and speakers and certainly don’t turn off the USB hub with its nice blinky lights that tell me it’s on, so I’m sure the HiSaver Energy strip will save me a few shekels. I believe in spending a little more to save the planet, but $99 for the strip, despite its robust build, is a little on the pricy side.
The former head of developer relations for the Stratics Network, Carolyn Koh has years of experience covering the MMORPG genre. Carolyn first started playing games such as Pong & Moon Buggy on the 8086, and arcade games like Ms. PacMan, Centipede, Red Baron and Joust before graduating to text muds through University computers and Doom on the LAN in the Engineering department after office hours. She claims she didn't frag the guys. Carolyn enjoys reviewing casual games and children's games for us. She also maintains a staff blog commenting on the emails crossing her desk that touch on the gaming industry in one form or another.
