These scam products have been about for a long time. They were originally sold by "salesmen" using a trick involving a display case. But recently they've been marketed aggressively on sites like Facebook from countries with poor financial accountability. The marketing generally has a story associated with it, often involving young inventors who defied the oil industry by sharing their marvellous invention with the world. The stories are all fake too. The images and video footage are either stock or stolen from other sites. In reality the plugs do nothing to reduce measured power in your home. There's even a risk that in the future when smart meters start measuring apparent power these units could end up costing you more. The capacitors in them are often low quality and connected directly across the mains supply, so there is a risk of fire if they fail. As such, I recommend against using them. If you really want one, they are available at their REAL price of about $5 from the main Chinese marketing sites. (Many are drop-shipped to online buyers.) They generally contain a fan-motor capacitor of between 3-5uF and a small PCB to make the green power indicator light. Sometimes the capacitors are so low quality that they don't even connect them. If you've bought one of these then your chance of getting a refund from the scammers is slim. Keep it as an unusual ornament and reminder to avoid online scams.
If you actually have a power meter that charges for apparent power, wouldn’t this save money? At least if you have inductive loads constantly plugged in. Fan motors, things that run off transformers, etc. Not actually sure how much that applies though, especially for residential areas. Plenty of things have momentary motors being turned on, or transformers like a microwave, but they’re all just momentary. Well as momentary as a fan, dryer, or linear amplifier gets. So if you cared about that you’d connect properly sized capacitors (and maybe NTC thermistors to dampen inrush) in parallel with specific loads. Also the other big risk with these is they can draw a lot of current when being connected, if they connect not at zero-crossing. For the same reason why capacitive droppers in older-style LED bulbs have resistors in series with the cap, for peak current limiting.
But how could it possibly help? If you're plugging something extra into the mains sockets in your house that claims to do something, how can that possibly save your energy bill?
Typically residential units have very few large inductive loads. Most ceiling fans in have installed in the US already have capacitors. There may be wall plug in fans that don't, however most of those fans don't use much power to begin with. What you would really want is to match the inductive load with the capacitor so you don't over compinsate. The main problem with these is the bad build quality, the lack of need, and the fact that they claim to save energy which they don't on most of not all residential situations. While they draw little current keeping it charges and led running, they do use power. And at worst will burn down your house
My father, who passed away, had similar. If I found it i will try to open and check what is inside. Even till now I don't understand what is this all about saving energy. Descroption " saving" sounds silly. I can not collect energy. So the only matter is in choice of using devices or disconnrectong them from sockets
I dislike "shorts" with a passion. Not because they are short videos, but because they "force" you to divert from your original thought process by the linking of other channels/videos below them.
THANK YOU FOR THE ABRIDGED VERSION!!! Spotted two of the top buggers in my uncle's sockets and immediately started looking for debunk videos; showed him the short, he took them out right after.
The really insidious thing about these is the people targeted by these scams. They appeal to people that are desperately looking to save money, likely because they don't have much in the first place... Or those who are a little more vulnerable. It's depressing that we live in a world where things like this are common.
Yet another Fabulous and very helpful public service announcement brought to you by Big Clive with his decades of knowledge and experience shared here. Thanks Big Clive.
You should Get some overhead projector transparencies sheets And Have the Repeating Lines "Scam Device - Fake Device - Dangerous Device " Even in other languages Just So They Can't Use your Video's For images that aid in sales
SOLD! Was tooling around out there in what should be Labeled Scamville & you were tucked in a corner so I reached over and opened you👍🏻 and happy I did and you are untucked 😁 TY!
I've seen power saving circuitry that did work at a local school. It clipped the waveform to reduce the voltage. Worked exceedingly well; because the appliances were now barely functional and volunteers just didn't use them.
There was a fad of corporate power savers that used buck transformers to reduce the voltage to a whole building. They caused huge issues with things like elevators.
Sounds like the sort of idea some manager responsible for the electricity bill would approve without properly assessing the impact. Probably got a bonus, company car upgrade and promoted to a more senior role before getting found out. Of course, the cost of investigating and fixing all the issues would come out of some other maintenance manager's budget who then got reprimanded for going over budget 😉.
Haha, my neighbour came to me wanted one fixed that had been burning! He'd bought up at least 10 the damn things and wasn't happy when i showed him he'd been duped!
I also heard these unregulated electrical products can cause problems with insurance - if they cause a fire / you try to claim - it could void your cover if the item doesnt pass UK standards .
Yeah, I really detest these TikTok videos (sorry, I mean TH-cam Shorts ........ ). Why not just make a short video in the normal aspect ratio and post it, these shorts are incredibly irritating for their aspect ratio alone.
Clive, you are doing great work alerting folk to the fake and dangerous items out in the marketplace ... ‘trading-standards for the Internet age’ ... but might it be better to start channel specifically for such dodgy stuff? Help them stand out from all your other (also excellent) videos. Just a thought. Keep up the great work 😀👍
I understand the theory behind these capacitors. Electric motors and electronic fluorescent light ballast are inductive loads and create a distortion in the ac sine wave and reduces efficiency. Capacitor loads counteract the effect to correct the power factor. The thing is, most residential loads are small enough that you wouldn’t really notice much difference and most residential type of motorized appliances already have run capacitors built in, making these gadgets unnecessary. In large industrial facilities like oil refineries that have megawatts worth of electric motors, they have large capacitor banks to correct the power factor and minimize losses.
About the only use is the case, if you need to have say a small case for a night light, this is perfect to put a few orange and red LED's in, with a repurposed phone wall wart, preferably one that is actually good quality, to drive them.
I have a power saving device that actually works, and is cheap to buy as well! I call it a “switch”, and when you put it in the “off” position, your device draws ZERO power!!1!
If you could save electricity by plugging in a box, then your electric grid, or home, or the power company, or the electrical appliances you own would already have it.
Hello, not directly related, but can't think of another way to message, and I wondered if you've seen the video "how to not make and electric piano" on youtube. It has many capacitors.
I have a 1000 ft run with 16 gauge wire, 120 volts ac. What I get at the end isn't so great. This little box actually helps correct the power factor when I plug in my box fan which helps a lot because of that long run. No danger of a fire to spread at its location so in this case it actually does help me. Of course the problem is most people don't understand what's going on so they just plug in the magic box and hope for the best when in fact most of the time it's not actually helping anything.
I've seen all your videos on these... I was at the local opticians a few months ago, and noticed in all their sockets they had those plastic "safety" plugs (the ones that actually make the standard British socket less safe) in most of their unused sockets so I told them about it, about their flaws, that they're banned by the national health service, in government buildings, care homes and if they didn't actually use the socket, best bet was to get a blanking plate installed... Yet they never took them out. You can't even buy them in UK stores now... I just got the feeling they thought I was some Karen having a moan, but that could cost lives... I tried to inform them the best I could about it, but not sure there was a way I could have done it differently, except go and pull them out myself and smash them. Any ideas?
The principal behind them is sound, it's another one of those half truths that end up as a scam product. Here in Australia only industrial customers have to pay for reactive power and get a fine/pay a higher rate for bad power factor.
They might be of limited use in very specific circumstances such as a really old fridge or something else with an old motor in it.. but most power providers don't charge for reactive power anyway unless you are a factory.. the small draw of the led will probably increase the average users electricity bill by a small amount hah.
The real power of psuedo science. As others have alteady said, domestic meters measure real power. Therefore, even if these do perform some power factor correction, they won't reduce your leccie bill.
Probably should plug it into my OBD-2 port and it might save me fuel... or vice-versa... but it might explode like that 1000 uF cap... either way, this makes the e-scam electronics exciting. LOL
If you haven't seen a video about these by now, you may have already guessed that they don't actually save you money. Who'd have thought something on the internet would be fake! 🤔 👍
It looks to be an old battery. One that when the power fails, you'd recharge a flashlight or phone. With new efficient batteries, I'm sure someones trying to unload millions of them. The capacitors are most definitely toxic.
The only power saving switch that save powers is the one that does not connect !! But then the light or machine will not turn on, but it WILL save 100% power
@@whisperpone which ones do you prefer? The digital ones that can also switch by weekday (e.g. Mo-Fr 8:00-18:00 On, weekend off) or the "old" mechanical 24h type where you can switch in 15 minute steps? 😃
It's all about trying to compensate the inductive reactive power, which is not billed in domestic tariffs, and businesses/factories have proper industrial capacitor batteries for that. As if someone heard something and naively tried to come up with a cheap solution to a non-problem.
@@bigclivedotcom Exactly. Now with all the SMPS and LED lights, the capacitive reactive power dominates the household, unless you're doing your laundry or got a water pump somewhere in your plumbing. So, an additional capacitor would make the power factor even worse.
There is no Free Energy Devices ! (C) Angry Mehdi, from Electroboom. But, to be honest, scams be not so dumb now and try to masking itself. So it harder to get, that scam or not
Si es una estafa quita la potencia de la luz y encima el mismo aparato gasta.es una vergüenza yo me los compré y después empecé a ver estos vídeos.y encima no te puedes poner en contacto con nadie desde España una vergüenza
Sadly you don't. There's a reason these scammers have payment systems in poorly regulated countries. Keep the unit as a reminder that there are many fake items being sold with convincing stories.
I remember seeing these on infomercials. And sometimes, in malls where the seller has a kiosk in the middle of the mall showing how this saves electricity. I was thinking why won’t my dad buy on to save money on our electric bill. Years later, my friend told me that these things break electronics at home since it limits the power that the appliances needs. Hence, could cause fires.
hi Clive. not a product but another Y/T channel - - th-cam.com/video/xHtrFl-c_mo/w-d-xo.html - - - i'm getting a twitch from my B/S detector. am I mistaken?
These are particularly nice for saving electricity by plugging that 1500w room heater into them... You'll save tons as soon as it melts down and trips the breaker.
These scam products have been about for a long time. They were originally sold by "salesmen" using a trick involving a display case. But recently they've been marketed aggressively on sites like Facebook from countries with poor financial accountability. The marketing generally has a story associated with it, often involving young inventors who defied the oil industry by sharing their marvellous invention with the world. The stories are all fake too. The images and video footage are either stock or stolen from other sites.
In reality the plugs do nothing to reduce measured power in your home.
There's even a risk that in the future when smart meters start measuring apparent power these units could end up costing you more.
The capacitors in them are often low quality and connected directly across the mains supply, so there is a risk of fire if they fail. As such, I recommend against using them.
If you really want one, they are available at their REAL price of about $5 from the main Chinese marketing sites. (Many are drop-shipped to online buyers.)
They generally contain a fan-motor capacitor of between 3-5uF and a small PCB to make the green power indicator light. Sometimes the capacitors are so low quality that they don't even connect them.
If you've bought one of these then your chance of getting a refund from the scammers is slim. Keep it as an unusual ornament and reminder to avoid online scams.
If you actually have a power meter that charges for apparent power, wouldn’t this save money? At least if you have inductive loads constantly plugged in. Fan motors, things that run off transformers, etc. Not actually sure how much that applies though, especially for residential areas. Plenty of things have momentary motors being turned on, or transformers like a microwave, but they’re all just momentary. Well as momentary as a fan, dryer, or linear amplifier gets. So if you cared about that you’d connect properly sized capacitors (and maybe NTC thermistors to dampen inrush) in parallel with specific loads.
Also the other big risk with these is they can draw a lot of current when being connected, if they connect not at zero-crossing. For the same reason why capacitive droppers in older-style LED bulbs have resistors in series with the cap, for peak current limiting.
But how could it possibly help? If you're plugging something extra into the mains sockets in your house that claims to do something, how can that possibly save your energy bill?
Typically residential units have very few large inductive loads. Most ceiling fans in have installed in the US already have capacitors. There may be wall plug in fans that don't, however most of those fans don't use much power to begin with. What you would really want is to match the inductive load with the capacitor so you don't over compinsate.
The main problem with these is the bad build quality, the lack of need, and the fact that they claim to save energy which they don't on most of not all residential situations. While they draw little current keeping it charges and led running, they do use power. And at worst will burn down your house
Well said!
My father, who passed away, had similar. If I found it i will try to open and check what is inside. Even till now I don't understand what is this all about saving energy. Descroption " saving" sounds silly. I can not collect energy. So the only matter is in choice of using devices or disconnrectong them from sockets
It makes me smile knowing people who don’t necessarily like electronics, are still getting Clive's wisdom in these shorts.
I dislike "shorts" with a passion. Not because they are short videos, but because they "force" you to divert from your original thought process by the linking of other channels/videos below them.
THANK YOU FOR THE ABRIDGED VERSION!!! Spotted two of the top buggers in my uncle's sockets and immediately started looking for debunk videos; showed him the short, he took them out right after.
I bought ten of those things for my house, and my house burned down. Sure enough, I'm saving on my power bill now, from $300/mo down to $0/mo!
lmaooo
I saved _$300/mo by switching to Geico! 🦎
Pmfs
Wait till you get the bill from the fire brigade.
@@Quickened1 I saved over 50% by switching FROM Geico, and to progressive. now that's.. progress
The really insidious thing about these is the people targeted by these scams. They appeal to people that are desperately looking to save money, likely because they don't have much in the first place... Or those who are a little more vulnerable. It's depressing that we live in a world where things like this are common.
Yet another Fabulous and very helpful public service announcement brought to you by Big Clive with his decades of knowledge and experience shared here.
Thanks Big Clive.
You should Get some overhead projector transparencies sheets And Have the Repeating Lines
"Scam Device - Fake Device - Dangerous Device "
Even in other languages
Just So They Can't Use your Video's For images that aid in sales
SOLD! Was tooling around out there in what should be Labeled Scamville & you were tucked in a corner so I reached over and opened you👍🏻 and happy I did and you are untucked 😁 TY!
big Clive please open one of these "audiophile noise rejection plugs" and show us the snake oil inside
They work as good as those gizmos you just reviewed for cars! Home version one could say!
Given the trend for e-vehicles, I'm sensing a huge new market for both devices. 😉
I've seen power saving circuitry that did work at a local school. It clipped the waveform to reduce the voltage. Worked exceedingly well; because the appliances were now barely functional and volunteers just didn't use them.
There was a fad of corporate power savers that used buck transformers to reduce the voltage to a whole building. They caused huge issues with things like elevators.
Clive - tell me about it - I had to deal with them about 15 years ago
Sounds like the sort of idea some manager responsible for the electricity bill would approve without properly assessing the impact. Probably got a bonus, company car upgrade and promoted to a more senior role before getting found out. Of course, the cost of investigating and fixing all the issues would come out of some other maintenance manager's budget who then got reprimanded for going over budget 😉.
Haha, my neighbour came to me wanted one fixed that had been burning! He'd bought up at least 10 the damn things and wasn't happy when i showed him he'd been duped!
Tell him to buy a few more so he has enough to populate every outlet in his home. Will cut his electricity bills to near zero!
I also heard these unregulated electrical products can cause problems with insurance - if they cause a fire / you try to claim - it could void your cover if the item doesnt pass UK standards .
the real scam here is the 25 percent missing from the aspect ratio
Yeah, I really detest these TikTok videos (sorry, I mean TH-cam Shorts ........ ). Why not just make a short video in the normal aspect ratio and post it, these shorts are incredibly irritating for their aspect ratio alone.
Yep, shorts (sharts?) are awful.
Thank you - I have now consigned my Power Saver to recycling. Love the channel.
Can you do a video/tear down on those plug in ‘super efficient’ room heaters TH-cam and alike keep trying to sell me?
Yes I can.
Clive, you are doing great work alerting folk to the fake and dangerous items out in the marketplace ... ‘trading-standards for the Internet age’ ... but might it be better to start channel specifically for such dodgy stuff? Help them stand out from all your other (also excellent) videos.
Just a thought. Keep up the great work 😀👍
I understand the theory behind these capacitors. Electric motors and electronic fluorescent light ballast are inductive loads and create a distortion in the ac sine wave and reduces efficiency. Capacitor loads counteract the effect to correct the power factor. The thing is, most residential loads are small enough that you wouldn’t really notice much difference and most residential type of motorized appliances already have run capacitors built in, making these gadgets unnecessary. In large industrial facilities like oil refineries that have megawatts worth of electric motors, they have large capacitor banks to correct the power factor and minimize losses.
Recieved an ad for one of these type of units and thought of you. Then saw this video.
also looks like a lightning protect plug,does it work in the same matter?
Different circuitry.
well done Clive this might well save someone's house
Sometimes these black "capacitors" are just epoxy blocks with wires coming out of them
That's probably the safest type.
About the only use is the case, if you need to have say a small case for a night light, this is perfect to put a few orange and red LED's in, with a repurposed phone wall wart, preferably one that is actually good quality, to drive them.
I have a power saving device that actually works, and is cheap to buy as well! I call it a “switch”, and when you put it in the “off” position, your device draws ZERO power!!1!
If you could save electricity by plugging in a box, then your electric grid, or home, or the power company, or the electrical appliances you own would already have it.
BOLLOCKS
i feel like you will lose power using these, a few miliamps atleast, IS THAT A COMPUTER MOUSE???
Thanks as always ❤
Hello, not directly related, but can't think of another way to message, and I wondered if you've seen the video "how to not make and electric piano" on youtube. It has many capacitors.
just commenting to boost the ranking :).
I plugged 4 in & my meter actually went backwards. Scottish Power now owes ME money. true story.
Do you have any magic beans for sale?
I have a 1000 ft run with 16 gauge wire, 120 volts ac. What I get at the end isn't so great. This little box actually helps correct the power factor when I plug in my box fan which helps a lot because of that long run. No danger of a fire to spread at its location so in this case it actually does help me. Of course the problem is most people don't understand what's going on so they just plug in the magic box and hope for the best when in fact most of the time it's not actually helping anything.
That's one of the rare occasions this could work. It might be worth experimenting with fan capacitors and put a suitable one on the fan itself.
I've seen all your videos on these... I was at the local opticians a few months ago, and noticed in all their sockets they had those plastic "safety" plugs (the ones that actually make the standard British socket less safe) in most of their unused sockets so I told them about it, about their flaws, that they're banned by the national health service, in government buildings, care homes and if they didn't actually use the socket, best bet was to get a blanking plate installed... Yet they never took them out. You can't even buy them in UK stores now... I just got the feeling they thought I was some Karen having a moan, but that could cost lives... I tried to inform them the best I could about it, but not sure there was a way I could have done it differently, except go and pull them out myself and smash them. Any ideas?
You've told them and that's all you can really do.
That will be the perfect complement to my fake ultrasonic pest repeller.😃👍
The principal behind them is sound, it's another one of those half truths that end up as a scam product. Here in Australia only industrial customers have to pay for reactive power and get a fine/pay a higher rate for bad power factor.
They might be of limited use in very specific circumstances such as a really old fridge or something else with an old motor in it.. but most power providers don't charge for reactive power anyway unless you are a factory.. the small draw of the led will probably increase the average users electricity bill by a small amount hah.
You'd also have to factor in that the capacitor is active all the time and the fridge compressor isn't.
I bought 3 of these for my house and now my house is also releasing energy! Its really wonderful and i can roast marshmallows on my buring house.
Do you work for the power grid
The real power of psuedo science. As others have alteady said, domestic meters measure real power. Therefore, even if these do perform some power factor correction, they won't reduce your leccie bill.
Amazon sell these. Tried to report them, they didn't seem to care
Probably should plug it into my OBD-2 port and it might save me fuel... or vice-versa... but it might explode like that 1000 uF cap... either way, this makes the e-scam electronics exciting. LOL
Nah, this one only works on electric cars 😆
But Elon doesn't want you to know about this 😂
Stay alive: Watch Big Clive! 🎉😊
Sad but it should automatically be considered a scam just because of it's origin. "Too good to be true" has somehow lost it's meaning.
As always you are a life saver .
Thank GOD for Clive!!
Well said sir!!
I picked one up packed that a market trader dropped and gave it to him.. he said you can have it 😂😂😂
Where can I get one? I use loads of electricity!
If you haven't seen a video about these by now, you may have already guessed that they don't actually save you money. Who'd have thought something on the internet would be fake! 🤔
👍
It looks to be an old battery. One that when the power fails, you'd recharge a flashlight or phone. With new efficient batteries, I'm sure someones trying to unload millions of them. The capacitors are most definitely toxic.
I saw something like this on a mainstream newspaper site advert. Voltmod it was called.
The only power saving switch that save powers is the one that does not connect !!
But then the light or machine will not turn on, but it WILL save 100% power
there IS one magic plug that will save you energy! it's called a timed switch to turn off all your unneeded devices at night pff
@@whisperpone which ones do you prefer? The digital ones that can also switch by weekday (e.g. Mo-Fr 8:00-18:00 On, weekend off) or the "old" mechanical 24h type where you can switch in 15 minute steps? 😃
You are forgetting about the power needed to run the timer, such wasteful devices!
Now honestly...have you ever knew anyone using these things...
They apparently sell well.
Well that means they are effective in cutting the bill completely to 0
Breaking news:
„Unbelievable:
No way to gain energy from nothing!“
Who would have guessed.
It's all about trying to compensate the inductive reactive power, which is not billed in domestic tariffs, and businesses/factories have proper industrial capacitor batteries for that. As if someone heard something and naively tried to come up with a cheap solution to a non-problem.
The power factor effect is what salesmen used to demonstrate this scam with. With a matched lossy inductive load and meters.
@@bigclivedotcom Exactly. Now with all the SMPS and LED lights, the capacitive reactive power dominates the household, unless you're doing your laundry or got a water pump somewhere in your plumbing. So, an additional capacitor would make the power factor even worse.
Power saver plugs ! 😄 More snake oil !
power factor correcting is more like what those do.
Mine came in from Amazon and sent it right back
I saw one at goodwill
there can never be a plugin devicev that saves electricity , unless you use a real switch to really switch all devices off
There is no Free Energy Devices ! (C) Angry Mehdi, from Electroboom.
But, to be honest, scams be not so dumb now and try to masking itself. So it harder to get, that scam or not
What are you talking about Big Clive? These save so much energy that you can back feed the extra savings to grid and get paid by power companies ...
Thank you
Amazing man!
how is a wall plug supposed to save electricity........
And AMAZOM continues to market them by the thousands...
There Just ball shit in outher words 🤣, thanks for ur video Clive
Si es una estafa quita la potencia de la luz y encima el mismo aparato gasta.es una vergüenza yo me los compré y después empecé a ver estos vídeos.y encima no te puedes poner en contacto con nadie desde España una vergüenza
The only thing these are good for is helping Credible TH-camrs gain views by busting this BS wide open for everyone to see.
How do I get my money back ????
Sadly you don't. There's a reason these scammers have payment systems in poorly regulated countries. Keep the unit as a reminder that there are many fake items being sold with convincing stories.
Is that a really scam can not use
It is a scam.
Arghhhhhhhh claimed power smoothing capabilities, but in fact setting fire to your expensive house capabilities, are far more believable.
please tag shorts with #shorts
It is tagged in the description.
Tags in shorts always make me itch. /jk
@@amorphuc Hey, cut it out!
The tags I mean.
@@bigclivedotcom the only description i can see is "Fake power savings plugs"
@@gavinminion8515 😀
But the result is the best
😂😂😂😂
I remember seeing these on infomercials. And sometimes, in malls where the seller has a kiosk in the middle of the mall showing how this saves electricity. I was thinking why won’t my dad buy on to save money on our electric bill.
Years later, my friend told me that these things break electronics at home since it limits the power that the appliances needs. Hence, could cause fires.
hi Clive. not a product but another Y/T channel - - th-cam.com/video/xHtrFl-c_mo/w-d-xo.html - - - i'm getting a twitch from my B/S detector. am I mistaken?
I couldn't even watch the whole thing. The endless bait and adverts.
These are particularly nice for saving electricity by plugging that 1500w room heater into them...
You'll save tons as soon as it melts down and trips the breaker.
How do we know the electric company isn't paying you to do videos to discourage people from getting them???