Eyedro Home Energy Monitor – Real-Time Electricity Usage Monitor with Solar Net Metering – Whole House Power Consumption Monitor – WiFi/Ethernet Smart Energy Meter with Reports & History, 2 Sensors

Great little device, great website, only one tiny complaint
I purchased this a week ago, and installed it literally in a few minutes. I did not even look at the directions, it’s just too simple.The install is really easy if you’re at all handy and not afraid of your load panel. Simply put, you remove the cover from your load panel, open the sensor by pushing in the little clip, slide the sensor around one of the power mains, and clip it shut. Repeat for the other sensor. Drop the wires out of the panel and replace the cover. Then connect the sensors to the EyeDro box, run an ethernet cable to it, and plug in the power. Voila!Next, go to their website and register an account, and either enter the serial number from the box or click the “Scan network” option which will find it.That’s it, you’re up and running!The box itself is very small, about the size of a deck of cards. There are no indicator lights on it, but it does include screws and a mounting template if you want to wall mount it.If you have not decided yet, you can go to their website and play with a demo version of the system, which is nice.It has the following reports:* Highlights. This shows a bar chart with recent power usage per hour, a meter that shows current usage (and is very responsive), today’s total usage, today’s projected total usage, a comparison to last month, the minimum and maximum amount of power used, the current rate (if you entered it into the setup, such as a tiered rate like I have), your estimated bill to date, and an estimate for your total bill.The best part about the Highlights is that the meter is VERY RESPONSIVE. I can watch the needle move up and down in near real-time. I can see when the stove is turned on, then watch as it cycles the burner on/off to maintain heat. It also shows a +/- designation that shows how much more/less power is being used presently compared to the last time the needle moved. For example, right now it shows -25w after a fan was turned off. If something else turns on, it would show +[number] to indicate the difference.* Insights. This shows your usage compared to other forms of power, such as gas, coal, natural gas, etc. I don’t find this very useful.* Live. This shows a very detailed chart of minute-by-minute power usage.* Summary. This shows a bar chart with hourly totals of power usage.* Comparison. This shows a comparison of power used to the previous month on a daily basis.* Bills. This shows a 12 month billing history, daily cost, daily average cost, consumption per tier, and so forth.* Reports. This shows a weekly report of usage compared to previous weeks.* Phantom energy. This shows your minimum usage demand, and helps you track down low-use devices that cost you money while they are supposedly turned off.* What’s it cost. This is a usage calculator that allows you to pick from a wide range of devices to determine how much they cost you to operate.* Net meter. If you have solar, or some other supplemental power supply system, this will tell you how much power you have generated versus how much you have used.The mobile website has all of these features as well, and has a really well done “swipe” design that allows you to swipe left/right across multiple screens per area.The site also has a variety of setup options, including a “rates” feature. This allows you to enter your rates from the power company, in one of three ways:* Fixed Price* Tiered* Time of UseYou can also specify if you are billed:* Monthly* Bi-monthly* QuarterlyFinally, you can also tell it that you have the following fees/charges:* Fixed fees* Variable (per kWh) fees* Adjustment factor* Taxes* RebatesMy only complaints: You have to login to the website almost every time you visit, even if it’s only been an hour or two. On the mobile site this often results in a box saying “error” and it never goes away, so you cannot login. You have to close the tab/browser, or restart your phone to get back in. (I have reported this issue to them as of 5/10/2015 so hopefully they will fix this.) It’s just a little hassle to have to login each time. (SEE PHOTOS)In addition, the “Dial” meter is inconsistent. Some times it has the needle in the red zone for (example) 4 kWh, and then later it will have the 4 kWh in the yellow zone. It’s not labelled either, and it should be. (SEE PHOTOS)All in all I really like it. This is exactly what I have been looking for, it’s cheap, easy to use, and has really helped me understand what the energy hogs in my house are (hint: it’s my HVAC).Finally, I got mine as an Amazon Warehouse Deal, for only $75! The box was very beat up, but the device was perfect and works great. Save yourself a few bucks if you can!

Eyedro gives me data to reduce my energy usage, and thus my electricity bill.
I’m very happy with the eyedro. I bought the wired version, and had to snake an ethernet cable from the router to the basement, but I’ve heard from their support team that the wireless version works fine in houses (signal can go through walls, multiple floors, etc). I would recommend going wireless to save you the trouble of drilling holes in floors, and running 100′ of ethernet, running ethernet through conduits, and stapling the cable to basement ceiling walls. It took me about 2 minutes to install the eyedro, but 2 hours to run an ethernet cable, go wireless.What I love about the eyedro, is that I can see how much energy the house is using in real time. I can walk around the house turning things on and off, and my phone shows the difference a second later. So, this turns saving energy into a game. Before bed, when I’m checking that all the doors are locked, I also pull up the Eyedro current usage meter on my phone, and check that we’re only using the baseline, which is about 200 watts. If its higher than that, that means I’ve left something on: lights / monitors / computer in the office, lights in the basement. Also, I’ve been replacing all the lights in the house from incandescents to LEDs, this is a huge and easy was to reducing energy usage. (I buy my lights from IKEA, very well priced). Next, I’m also hunting the house, to try to find “phantom energy” users. i.e. things that draw a load, even though your not really using it, think stereo, vcr, tv, coffee maker. Overnight, my house used a minimum of 170 watts, meaning, once the furnace fan turned off, and the refrigerator took a break, and all the lights were off, things in the house that I’m not using still pulled that much energy. 170 watts of phantom energy, costs about $160/yr at my energy rate, and the eyedro dashboard gives you all of this information in real time reports. You can view the eyedro dashboard from your laptop, or from your phone. It’s not a native mobile app, but a mobile website, it works fine. There are a dozen or so reports or dashboards. It gives numbers and graphs, not at all complicated to figure out meaningful events. (i.e. this spike is probably the furnace fan kicking on, this spike is probably the microwave, this spike is the vacuum, this is the lights in this room turning on/off, this the tv).Also, we took a trip, and I logged in to see how much energy we were using, and we must have left in a hurry, because the house was using 900 watts baseline, oops. If your online gone for a few hours, thats 700 watts extra * 10 hours = 7kw * $0.10/kwh = $0.70 that you paid for nothing, so no big deal if your gone for a short duration, but if you were away for a week, with all that on, then oops. I’m considering adding smart light switches and outlets, that I can turn off remotely. I’m thinking Lutron Caseta for the lights, and Belkin wemo for the outlets. I’m not how long the ROI, from those things would take, but personally, I’d like to save energy. Also, when using energy, is something is a very short duration usage, such as a vacuum for 5 minutes, or a sander for 20 minutes, that doesn’t cost much energy in the grand scheme, but things that are always running, such as lights, fridge, furnace fan, office, that’s where you’ll want to pay attention to usage.The next thing I have planned for eyedro, is to take a look at how much energy my appliances are using. I could see how much energy the coffee maker uses, the refrigerator uses. Eyedro doesn’t have the ability to single out individual appliances, it just measures the whole-house, but, at 8am I started the coffee machine, and it used energy for 2 hours. The refrigerator has all of these cycles, that is pretty much continuous throughout the day. So, I could compare them to newer models that use less energy. Maybe, just pour my coffee into a carafe, or get maker that brews it into a carafe, and then turns off.Down the road, I’d like to add a solar panel electric system to the house, maybe. Before then, I’d like the house to be efficient with usage, so that I won’t have to buy as expensive of a system, and eyedro is helping me to steer that direction.Also, I was having issues with our internet, and since the eyedro is always uploading data to the cloud, whenever the internet would drop, I got emails that eyedro lost connectivity. Thus, I had data to tell my ISP that the internet had been flaky, and they replaced the modem.Conclusion: Its a nice toy to show off to others, but it gives you data, that helps you to take action to reduce your usage, to ultimately reduce your electricity bill. Its not just turn off the lights because I said so, but this light is using this much energy, and this is how much its costing us per hour. Lastly, if I were to buy this again, I would spring for the wireless version, save yourself the hassle of running a cable to your basement.

I’ve been using this item for about 10 months now (actually I order 2 and use one for my home and the other for my parents house). I have never had an issue with the quality of the product. The website app can be used easily on a mobile device as well as a laptop. Easy to install and setup (they also have setup videos online you can watch). I use it multiple times a day to check my current demand (especially to check the demand of my hot tub and car charger). The daily consumption feature, month reports are convenient to use for knowing your energy consumption and what to expect from an invoice for your electrical utility (the myEyedro reports have always been withing a few dollars of the utilities invoice). I have contacted their technical support team and they are quick to respond and help you out. I would highly recommend this product for the all the features you get for the price; it can’t be beat!

Let me just start with how poor the instructions are on this product (see attached image). It basically says “connect it” and that’s it. No information about how it would be configured in a solar system, no information on the best place to connect it in your panel other than “put it on what you want to monitor”. I was trying to use it in an off-grid system, all of our power comes from our solar generation (which is stored in batteries). This seemed like a perfect product, given how much solar monitoring is mentioned, for example:- “The EYFEFI-2 is capable of monitoring solar and electricity”- “MONITOR YOUR SOLAR USAGE with the EYEFI-2 and its Two 200A Sensors.”- “Check your solar usage to minimize electricity usage and maximize solar use.”- “The EYEFI-2 supports Solar and Net Metering.”This really sounds like it will monitor solar generation eh? Well, after connecting it at various places along our system and a fair amount of back and forth with customer service, it turns out that this is ONLY able to measure AC AFTER the inverter. It does not monitor how much your solar generates. The only situation in which it “monitors solar” is if you’re feeding your panels directly into an inverter and then dumping that directly back into the grid. In this scenario you’re technically only using solar to offset your grid usage and your home really just runs off grid with solar as a way to offset costs. This is no difference than if you’re using ANY AC monitor and there is NOTHING about this that is specifically designed for solar. It cannot monitor what your panels are collecting. It cannot monitor what your charge controller is outputting. It cannot monitor flow into your battery bank.What it can do is monitor AC current (from grid or from an inverter) and you can LABEL that as “generation” on their website. So misleading and I’d argue is actively deceptive. Lastly, the website is janky as heck and barely works on a phone. The only thing it does to well is monitor usage from your main AC breaker panel. But so does a dozen other AC monitors on the market.If you’re looking to “monitor solar generation” this product probably isn’t for you. If you’re looking to monitor how much your solar is pumping back into the grid, then this would work in that and only that scenario. Ultimately I returned the product and will probably build a raspberry pi system to monitor the output from my AXS Port on my charge controller.