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Watts Up (Pro/.NET) Resources
If you're looking for the software or owner's manual for a Watts Up, Watts Up Pro or Watts Up .NET, you're in the right place. There are also a few other random things around here.

I don't know much of the company behind these products, other than it seems they went through several iterations before ulimately going out of business. It seems that a great many electric utility companies, governmental entities (one of mine belonged to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and even some libraries (where my second unit came from) bought and sometimes loaned them out to end users. These meters are still quite common on the secondhand market. While you can find the documention and software elsewhere, it's not exactly growing on trees and may get harder to find as time goes on. So, here I am, swooping in yet again to try and rescue bits of the past before they fade away to nothing at all.

I can't speak to the accuracy of the Watts Up meter (at this time, maybe I can later). I believe it's capable of true-RMS measurements and can take into account the power factor of highly inductive ("motor") loads in its calculations. However, at least one of mine reports a unity power factor (1.0) when connected to an older refrigerator having simple line powered motors and no fancy inverters or other technology. It shouldn't be doing that, even if there is a run capacitor within.

Both the Pro and .NET versions of the Watts Up product have a USB port attached to a USB to RS232 bridge. This port is optically isolated from the meter's electronics, so you can safely connect it to your computer without the risk of frying anything. Pleasingly, the Watts Up products use an FTDI bridge chip. Those are just about the best you can get, and far, far better than the garbage spewed by Prolific Technology.

I am not and don't provide a technical support service, repairs or anything else for these products. Nor do I sell them. Feel free to drop me an e-mail, but please don't ask for help installing or using the software on your computer. I believe the minimum supported OS is Windows 98. (Even though the last release of Windows 95 has USB support, it never got to be fully developed and most things don't work because their device drivers are implemented using the Windows Driver Model.) If you want to buy one, you can get yours the same place I found mine: on eBay.

Manuals:

Watts Up Pro Manual (doesn't render quite right in Firefox's built in PDF reader as of version 68)
Watts Up .NET Manual (newer version, also covers the Pro model)

Software:

This software is for the newer (2007-up) Watts Up meters with USB connectors. It's not for and seemingly won't work with the older meters having a "microphone jack" style connector. There's also seemingly some Macintosh and Linux software around that was independently developed, but I don't have it and know nothing of it at this time. Everything linked directly below is for Microsoft Windows users.

FTDI USB/RS232 Driver Package
Data Retrieval Software

Both of the above come from the BAPCO web site. As best I can tell, both downloads are unaltered from what the Watts Up Pro/.NET manufacturers originally supplied. However, I make no promises. Whatever happens as a result of your downloading, using or doing whatever with these files is on you. I take no responsibility nor do I make any guarantees. Make backups before you change or add to your computer's configuration, which I'm sure you're doing anyway, because you're certainly supposed to.

As usual, I'm strongly of the belief that anyone who owns one of the Watts Up meters has a right to obtain and utilize the software that was once made available. I saw no prohibition in the (amazingly short!) EULA on redistribution. However, the software is copyrighted and the rights to it remain with Watts Up, Electronic Educational Devices or any successor company.

I have read of a different software package for the Watts Up meters that supported real time monitoring (and perhaps logging?) of data coming in from the meter. I'm not sure what or where this may have come from. It was mentioned that this software was an extra cost item, around $80. Vernier's Logger Pro 3 may well still have support for the Watts Up product. If you know anything about this software, please drop a line.

There was also a Google project, known as Google Powermeter, which could collect data from these and similar products. This has long since been discontinued.

I expect to add to this category over time. If anyone has newer versions of the software, or software for other products from Electronic Educational Devices/Watts Up, please feel free to send them along. Near as I can tell, the open source Sigrok project does not (yet) support these meters.

Watts Up .NET Specific Stuff

The .NET variant of the Watts Up meter adds an onboard Ethernet connection which once provided data to a cloud based service that has (of course!) long since disappeared. Although there's no onboard web server (nor seemingly any other service running on the network interface), it's my understanding that the meter can push data using HTTP POSTs made to any willing web server. This, along with an IP address (with an option to use DHCP) could be used to direct captured data to a server you operate. However, I've not yet tried it and cannot offer any advice on the subject.

Other Stuff

Serial Protocol (probably for the older version)
Newer Serial Protocol (USB/Serial bridged models)
Data Sheet (makes mention of true-RMS capability)

Links and Such:

Original Web Site (an archive from ~2012, from the Internet Archive)
Google Power Meter (also archived)
Stuff for Linux Users (also has the "older" serial protocol, same document as linked above)

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Copyright © 2020 by William R. Walsh. Some rights reserved. The terms and conditions governing your use or reuse of this material are available from the top level page of this server. All rights and title to the documentation and software provided here remain with its authors (even though I suspect the company behind these products is long since defunct). Last updated July 5th, 2020.