My Energy Connection

Main concern I have for using the app is that you have to share and Xcel collects and retains your wifi and password in order to connect to your smart meter. You have to accept this privacy policy and terms of use before I can even login and see if app is even worth it. Really??? Who gives out their secure wifi and password to anyone randomly that you don’t trust. Xcel needs to figure better way or ensure primary as I never trust a company to secure my data. It’s fool’s errand. In theory, it’s an amazing concept as I would love to really get real time data. Xcel has other app where you can get some daily and by varying timelines. It’s helpful but not the best. I was really hoping to be able to use this app without encroaching my privacy.

I’ll start by saying the app has some great information. Being able to see consumption and solar generation real-time has been a good tool to find where electricity is being used. The bad: it requires me to connect to a slower network to use. I have multiple WiFi networks set up. One is dedicated to IoT devices and that’s what I have the meter connect to. I have a separate 6Ghz network I use for devices capable of 6Ghz, my phone included. The networks are not isolated meaning I can be on the 6Ghz network and still talk to slower IoT devices on that network. The app needs to start by scanning to see if it can see the meter which it should be able to do, as long as the meter remains connected. Stop forcing me to change networks just to use the app. Fix this and I’ll change my review to five stars.

App is overly tied to the limitations of same WiFi network for realtime use. Doesn't matter the 2.4g and 5g are the same ip space, I’m forced to connect to the 2.4g in order to see the realtime. Changing WiFi networks works on every 10th try, app disconnects and reconnects on random. Hot garbage at best, but I’m excited to see my realtime use when it’s up long enough to see. Tips to the dev, store relevant device name/ip info in the app for faster reconnect and get rid of the same WiFi network nonsense we learned how to fix in 2014.