Belkin Conserve Switch Power Strip Review

We’ve seen plenty of great power-saving devices from the crew out at Belkin, and they’ve sent out another one for us to check out. They sent out the Belkin Conserve Switch, and if you’ve got a lot of hardware needing power, this is a great place to start looking.

The Belkin Conserve Switch is much like other power strips, in that it offers up eight outlets that plug into one central cord. But this one differs from many of those you’d expect in that it’s got an edge of green to it. Two of those eight outlets are always-on outlets, in that they always have power going to them. The other six can be shut off, and even include a remote control to activate the stuff that’s connected to those six with the flick of a switch. If the remote isn’t on, neither are the devices plugged into those outlets.

This is great for those “vampire” devices that are continually charging when plugged in, even if their batteries are fully charged. Such devices can chew a lot of power. Of course, there’s alternate uses here too, including hooking one of these to an always-on lamp, giving you a lamp that you can operate by remote. And that’s always pleasant.

The remote has pretty decent range–it’s not powerful enough to operate through walls, but as long as you’re in the same general area, you’ll be all right. So forget about this one to light your house when you get out of the car, but for everything else, especially the power saving uses, you’ll do very well here.

The folks at Amazon are selling these at $32 each, which is a pretty hefty price for a surge protector, but just might pay for itself in power savings and sheer convenience.