RV Gadget: Powering safety with the Hughes Power Watchdog

By Tony Barthel
You don’t need a surge suppressor. Until you do. Like a seat belt, or the limit on the bungee cord at the top of the canyon. A lot people have told me that they have been RVing for years and haven’t had a surge suppressor for their RV and everything’s fine.

But modern RVs, like so many other things in our lives, are filled with tiny computers that monitor systems and make sure that they’re working properly. Your water heater, refrigerator, air conditioner, and so many other systems have a computer that makes them run.

A good spike in the power coming in, or a severe brown-out or over-voltage, and those computers are done for. Your insurance will pay, you say. Nifty. But consider that Ford just announced it is slowing down its cornerstone of profit, the F-150, because a company that size just can’t buy enough computer chips.

So what? I have insurance

Even if your insurance company agrees to buy you those new circuit boards, how many months do you think your RV will be sitting around until you can get them? There’s an old expression that says, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” And that’s true here, as well.

All that negativity is to start out looking at the Hughes Power Watchdog PWD30-EPO, a portable power protector that I’ve been wanting for some time. Now, it’s not like I didn’t already have a power protector. My Progressive Industries EMS-PT30X RV surge protector has been a part of my RV travel experience since I first bought this trailer. Why change?

Hit the ground running with a Power Watchdog

Hughes has really come out of the gate swinging. Their Power Watchdog models have features that are unique in the industry, including the ability to monitor the unit remotely via a Bluetooth app on your smartphone or tablet. For a nerd like me, being able to monitor power use, or even trouble reporting, from inside the rig is pretty nifty.

Furthermore, should there ever be an event that disables the unit, the critical components of the unit are easily replaceable. So, rather than throw the whole thing away, you can just replace the components that have failed. I like this.

As for power protection, the Power Watchdog has 2,400 joules of surge protection as well as a smart circuit analyzer that will shut down the power to the RV and protect it if a dangerous event occurs. Plus, your smartphone will be notified.

If you have a unit with power shutoff capability like the Hughes or the Progressive Industries model I had previously, there is a delay when you first get to a power pedestal and plug it in as it evaluates the power. On the Progressive model, this seemed to be just over a minute. But the Power Watchdog seems much faster at somewhere around 20 seconds or so.

The Power Watchdog is also IP65 rated, which means it can be out in the rain when you don’t want to be. It monitors for things like open ground, open neutral, reverse polarity, open circuit and miswired pedestals.

My own personal power problems

And that last feature is what has helped me. A few years ago when our county was burning, it seemed everybody with an RV was gathered at what is my favorite RV park anyway, including me. We fire evacuees were all there in the heat of summer with our air conditioners running.

This park, built in the 1950s, hadn’t seen this much business in some time. As people came in more air conditioners kicked on. But, even worse, many of my fellow evacuees were in RVs that hadn’t seen the road in a good while. So, finally someone plugged in and their RV caused the whole leg of the park that I was on to experience a failure.

That power issue took out most of the little electronic goodies in a friend’s newer Navion – which had no surge suppressor. In my case, my surge suppressor just cut the power to my RV and I was all good until the problem was resolved.

Portable or hard-wired Power Watchdog?

You can get these units either in portable form or hard-wired, and they’re available for both 30-amp and 50-amp rigs. But I prefer portable units, and here’s why.

The first thing I do when I get to a campground is whip out the surge suppressor and plug it in. On the Hughes unit, there’s a picture of a dog on the outside. If the dog lights up white, it’s all right. If it’s red, it’s power you’ll dread (feel free to remember that stupid rhyme). I have pulled into a campground on several occasions and had bad power at a site.

Usually, this is a newly wired plug in an older campground, and whoever is doing the wiring is nobody’s electrician. Campground maintenance folks are often jacks of all trades, and electricity is not something some of them understand well.

So when I find a bad site, I go back to the office and ask for one that isn’t bad.

My recommendation

When I write these reviews I will tell you if I would buy one and leave you to make your own decision. In this case, I would like to strongly suggest that you get a surge suppressor with power shutoff capability, and I personally feel the Hughes product is the best at this time.

But the recommendation isn’t just mine. I got to talk to our own power master, Mike Sokol, whom I have mad respect for with electrical things. He, too, suggested that this is a very wise buy for an RVer.

One more thing

Furthermore, since the Power Watchdog has Bluetooth functionality, you can pair it with RVWhisper.com‘s monitoring system to know if the power goes out or if you have power issues. This is great if you have pets, as it uses Wi-Fi to keep you in touch with your RV and can include the Power Watchdog in the things it oversees.

You can read the original article here: https://www.rvtravel.com/rv-gadget-powering-safety-hughes-power-watchdog1000/