I admit, I went a long time without a RV surge protector. Yep, sure did.
Wow! What a rookie mistake!
We follow several RV groups on Facebook and we hear from time to time about unlucky people who had their whole RV fried in the blink of an eye because of trashy electrical service at campgrounds. (Pictured- fried electronics from a faulty campground post)
So, I did some homework and I found that it's not just surges you need to worry about. Apparently, having low voltage or slightly high voltage is much more common and will damage your electronics. Voltage outside of the safe range will especially harm your sensitive electronics like computers, phones and tablets!!
I searched for the best surge protector on the market and I found The Power Watchdog made by Hughes Autoformers. The Autoformer is another amazing device but we will talk about that in a separate blog post.
The Power WatchDog is absolutely amazing!
See our YouTube Here
The Power Watchdog is so amazing, we made an entire youtube video highlighting our experience!
In this video we unbox, install, set it up and talk more about all the features. HERE
We firmly believe you get what you pay for and we have been burned many times by trying to save money by purchasing an inferior product. This unit may be slightly more expensive, however, we have partnered with this company to bring you a discount code: SALTYESCAPE which will save you 10%.
Here is the link to their page: https://hughesautoformers.com/
Anyway, let me tell you why we chose this piece of equipment!
The Power WatchDog has the industry leading surge protection with a replaceable surge module! This means when you get surged you simply replace the module and you are back up and running. With other surge protectors, your whole unit would be trash.
The Power WatchDog has a built in circuit tester! When you arrive at your campsite, plug in the Power Watchdog and it will check your service to ensure the post is wired correctly and voltage is correct!
The Power Watchdog also has real time Bluetooth monitoring of your voltage and amperage used via the app! We love this feature for two reasons. First, we can identify our high draw devices which helps us to calculate how much solar / battery bank we will need when we do convert to off grid. Second, the Power Watchdog will keep track of your kilowatts uses. This is a great feature when the campground is metering your power consumption.
Lastly, the Power WatchDog is the only RV Surge Protector with EPO! EPO stands for Emergency Power Off! Basically, the “smart” device will constantly monitor the power conditions of the campground and if unsafe levels develop it will shut your power down to protect your devices. When this happens, it is the perfect time to use the Hughes Autoformer… but again, more about this in a later post.
We highly recommend this surge protector! The Power Watchdog has so many feature that are overwhelmingly better than all the others. This will be the last surge protector you will ever need!
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Cheers!
Corey