Mark celebrates the return of the even smarter Intelliplug
Way back in late 2006 I reviewed the original OneClick Intelliplug and called it "A simple but effective means of electrical power control."
What it did was provide a means to slave the power of one device to others, so that when you turned off your PC, for example, all the peripheral devices had their power chopped too.
However, a couple of years later, I ran into problems with my Intelliplug, because as my PC became more power efficient, it started thinking it was turned off when I was still using it.
The new AVC014 design addresses that issue, comprehensively and also adds some other clever twists to make it even better at saving power.
Comparing it to the original, the AVC014 is almost identically sized and shaped, though the sockets have now been redefined. The original had one master and two dependent sockets, and this has master, slave and 'Always On'.
It's a minor change, but if you hang a gang socket off the slave and Always On outlets, then you can cover any eventuality.
On the underside is now a small rocker switch that is related to what looks like an RJ12 telephone style socket on the side. Here you plug a remote infrared sensor in, and the rocker sets if the sensor controls the master socket or is always live.
Initially I wondered if the sensor detected body heat, but actually what it does is detect the infrared signal put out by any remote control. Using any remote will activate power to the Master socket, allowing a TV to be turned off entirely but still powered back using a remote.
As clever as this is, under EU regulations, all modern TVs must consume less than 1W in standby, so turning it off entirely will probably only save you less than a fiver a year.
The more useful use for the RJ12 socket is as a means to connect the AVC014 to a PC, using the Customisation Kit AVCP01 (£9.95).
Using this special cable, the device can be connected to a PC's USB port and do lots of interesting things if you're running Windows 7 or later.
Included in this extended repertoire is the ability to monitor power consumption, obtain collective power readings, pair remotes to the sensor and define activity timers.
But by far the best feature - and the one that fixes directly the problems I experienced - was an ability to fix a specific power threshold for the Master Socket, below which the slave outlets are disabled. This makes the AVC014 significantly more useful than a general purpose smart plug, as you can tailor its operation to very exacting conditions.
The flipside of that coin is that where the original Intelliplug could be found for less than £20, this is at least another tenner, and with the AVCP01 it's double the cost.
In the right situation, this device could earn its cost back in a reduced electricity bill, but exactly how long it would take to do that depends on how intelligently you use it. Mark Pickavance
The Stephen Hawking of intelligent power plugs.