{"id":5395,"date":"2026-02-26T14:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2026-02-26T14:47:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:47:01","slug":"kilowatt-counter-cleverness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?p=5395","title":{"rendered":"Kilowatt Counter Cleverness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I hope the designer got recognized for this one, because it&#8217;s really clever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"462\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-02-26-13.33.08-1024x462.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5397\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-02-26-13.33.08-1024x462.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-02-26-13.33.08-300x135.png 300w, https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-02-26-13.33.08-768x346.png 768w, https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-02-26-13.33.08.png 1156w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The readout dials of a Westinghouse Type CA watt-hour meter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On a recent trip to the frozen Northlands, I came across a Westinghouse kilowatt-hour meter and picked it up to use in classroom discussions about power and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking more closely at it reveals a neat design quirk &#8212; the 2nd and 4th indicators move counterclockwise, and so (with reversed scales) can share two digits with each neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There seems to be enough space in the meter that this wouldn&#8217;t be necessary &#8212; but perhaps the design was originally from a smaller meter. Or maybe this was just an engineer having fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A vintage Westinghouse watt-hour meter uses a unique, efficient readout design. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?p=5395\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[306,254,475],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-power","category-user-interface-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}