Schneider Home

Review: Wiser / Schneider Home Energy Monitor Avoid this product at all costs. The Wiser Energy Monitor — now rebranded as Schneider Home — went from disappointing to flat-out useless. The only thing it reliably shows is overall household usage, which I could get from my electric meter for free. The entire promise of real-time, individual appliance monitoring is basically a con job. It never detects devices accurately, it loses them constantly, and half the time it doesn’t report anything meaningful at all. The rebranding to “Schneider Home” somehow made everything worse. The app is unstable, the features are stripped down, and the whole system feels like a half-finished beta experiment dumped on paying customers. Real-time appliance identification? Forget it. It simply does not work as advertised. Customer service is atrocious. They are slow, unhelpful, and often don’t even seem to understand their own product. When something breaks — and it will — you’re on your own. I’ve used plenty of smart devices and monitoring tools over the years, and this is by far one of the worst purchases I’ve ever made. Anyone considering this monitor should run in the opposite direction. Save your money and your sanity — this product is nothing but frustration wrapped in false promises.

I use to monitor my residential solar. The visualizations and bar graphs were much better in the old app. The ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ ring visualizations are not intuitive of what they represent. If you have to make extra clicks and read a plots legend to understand the plot, it’s too complicated. The color yellow is more intuitive to represent ‘solar’ not green. The old floating bubbles with the size representing watts of each device was great. The ‘live power flow’ should show instantly where the power is flowing all the time, not have to wait 10 seconds for the animation to change. No real time graphs to the second! Just 15 min intervals, which is useless for identifying loads/devices. Don’t make the grid power go negative, make this the power used by the home like the old app. Under ‘Activity’ page, ‘total consumption’ is not obvious what this represents with related to solar and grid power sources. The data displayed on the ‘dashboard’ tab on old app was easy to understand, bring that screen back. Email states it will take a minimum 30 days to get back my historic data going back 2 years, I would like all my data going back 3+ years! Finally, the app is 40% off the total solar production kWh compared to solar inverter measurement.

The app has some strong features, but one area where it falls short is in its notification system. Currently, the app does not send real-time push notifications. Instead, users only receive updates when they actively open the app which can be inconvenient for users who rely on real-time alerts to manage their energy usage effectively. For example, if there’s a sudden power outage or a battery issue, the app won’t alert you immediately. This lack of active push notifications could lead to missed opportunities to maximize efficiency or respond to critical energy events. Adding real-time notifications would greatly enhance the app’s functionality. Timely alerts for events like switching between energy sources, low battery levels, or grid disruptions would empower users to take immediate action. Customizable notification settings would also allow users to tailor alerts to their specific needs, ensuring they receive only the most relevant updates. In its current state, the app requires users to check in manually, which can lead to missed opportunities or important updates. By addressing this limitation, the app could better meet user expectations and compete more effectively in its category.