Control Any Device's Power Consumption With the Belkin Socket

Over the last year, I've told you about Belkin's cool Conserve series of green products with articles on the Valet charging station and the Insight energy monitor. They're back again with another cool new product that can slay even more energy vampires.

The Conserve Socket is a simple gadget that plug in between your wall socket and a device you want to control. You set a timer and once that timer is up, it will cut off all electricity to whatever you have plugged in. It has three different settings: 30 minutes, three hours and six hours.

The applications are pretty diverse. For traditional energy vampires like a cell phone charger, it functions the same way as the Valet charging station by cutting off the small trickle of power that flows through a charger when it's not charging. But you also can use the Socket with things like lights and fans, leaving them on for a little while without having to leave them on indefinitely.  You can even use it with curling irons and hair straighteners to prevent fires.

The Conserve Socket is available now for $9.99 from the Belkin store.

Image via Belkin.