Ecotek Energy Wizard - snake oil?

[atarian]

I just saw this thing called an "Energy Wizard" on the Coolest Gadgets blog.
Here: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20100610/ecotek-energy-wizard-saves-energy/

It purports to function by "making sure the alternating current and voltage works a little more smoothly. The voltage and current rise and fall together. By forcing you appliance to do that it makes it run much more efficiently and will bring down that energy bill."

That sounds like BS of the over-priced speaker cable variety. Coolest Gadgets has posted other nonsense in the past like clocks that "run on water" that are just using the electrodes in potatoes trick.

The manufacturer homepage here: http://www.standby-saver.co.uk/energy_wizard
gives a little more detail, but I'm far from convinced.

Any electrical engineers or other knowledgeable bods care to comment?

 

[edd]

It probably does something to the relative phases of the voltage and current and changes the amount of reactive power going in and out. Power in AC systems is not as trivial to figure out as it might appear at first
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_power#Real.2C_reactive.2C_and_apparent_power

See when I first came across one of these:
http://ask.metafilter.com/60832/A-d...-when-plugged-into-the-mains-how-does-it-work

It sounds like its providing a small bit of capacitance which might help correct the power factors on inductive loads, but there's probably not a lot to gain from using it, if anything.

IANAEE