Product Reviews

Domia's Bye Bye Standby Energy Saving Kit (which we reviewed in What's New, Shopper 233) is a simple way to save money. It comes with three Appliance Switches into which you plug your devices or multi-way adaptors and then toggle power using an RF remote control, saving electricity by not powering standby modes. With the Online Controller, you can control your Appliance Switches over the internet.

The Controller is a small box that plugs into your broadband router via Ethernet. It doesn't come with any Appliance Switches, so you need to buy them individually or opt for the Energy Saving Kit, which costs £26 including

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Once you've registered your controller with the simple website, you just need to add your Appliance Switches by device code (visible on the front of the plugs). You can give each device a name, location and icon, such as a picture of a TV.

The webpage then displays all your devices, and you can turn them on or off with a single click. This might seem an expensive way to control power to devices that you won't use when you're not in, but the Online Controller can also be used for automatic home control.

By configuring scenes, which control multiple devices at once, and scheduling them, you can set times when you want devices to go on or off. If you plug lamps into your Appliance Switches, you can make it look like someone's home when you're out. This makes the Controller more about home automation than power saving, but it's not flexible enough for this. The basic range of appliance switches means you're limited to toggling power to devices with plugs. If you want to do this, simple timer plugs are easier and don't have a yearly charge.

For full home automation, you need devices that use the X10 protocol. If you want to save power, the Energy Saving Kit is better value.