Emporia Gen 2 Smart Home Energy Monitor with 16 50A Circuit Level Sensors | Real Time Electricity Monitor/Meter | Solar/Net Metering

Ive had this system going on a few years and intentionally delayed my review until i got proper use of it. Let me save you any reading by saying it is absolutely worth purchasing to perform your own daily energy audit of your home.IF you are worried about and old air conditioner, water heater, fridge running up your electric bills; this little gadget doesnt lie. I have a very old AC but after close monitoring I do not use enough energy to warrant replacing it. My home is spray foamed and mostly stable temps. Same with my water heater. It holds temps faily well and only runs at peak when we use it to shower. The suprise for me was our new fridge, the cost to keep making ice and how often it runs. our led lights in the house barely draw any amperage and are on constantly. It has led me to believe where money should be invested as we move forward repairing our home more so in windows and doors.this should be a standard in every home. historical data for comparisions and improvements is essential and is what truly makes this product worth every dollar. Measuring and data collection is the only way we learn and evolve. This pushes home and business energy into the new era and for someone like me that lives and breathes measuring things, Its invaluable. My home will always have one of these systems.The installation difficulty depends on the neatness of your panels. zipties are a must and you better be very experienced or have an electrician. the product has been flawless with exception of course of power outage where it isnt needed.my only absolute negative is the internet wifi connectivity antenna sucks. What saved this product from being returned 3 years ago was i bought coaxial extention by about 100ft and dropped it in my living room ceiling near my router. I have not had a problem since.

I love the Emporia Vue 2 energy monitor. The monitor is the only monitor that provides detailed info on each individual circuit. Most monitors provide only the mains usage. The only near competitor to the Vue 2 is the Sense. However, I read too many negative reviews regarding the Sense's ability to determine what devices were being used in the house.The Vue 2 gives accurate information on each circuit. The Vue 2 matches my electrical bill regarding monthly usage per day and month. The total cost is off due to variation of end of month billing dates and add on utility company charges.The charts are functional and fine for my purposes. There is no API for to the feed data to an external program. You can download the raw data in CSV format if you want your own custom reporting. You can use the phone app or the website. You must login into the website to view your household information.I have not experienced any of the device or app issues that some people have reported.Tech support is awesome! They respond, know their stuff, and stay engaged until the issue is resolved.I did the installation myself. There are many You Tube videos that provide guidance. The instructions are simple, easy to follow, and accurate. The installation itself is easy and went relatively quickly. The breaker box will be a little crowded and messy unless you make an effort to wire-mind the cables.The Vue 2 can monitor only 16 circuits/breaker slots. I have 20 breaker slots occupied and 2 mains, so my Vue 2 is full. If you have more than 16 breakers and some are dual pole breakers, you can save a Vue 2 slot by monitoring 1 pole of the dual pole breaker and use a circuit multiplier of 2. If you still have additional breakers to monitor, you will need a second Vue 2 and "nest" the 2nd device under the 1st device. Contact Emporia support for additional questions.It is critical that you understand that when the main breaker is pulled the individual circuits to the house are dead BUT the mains that come from the utility pole into the breaker box are still live and dangerous. If you are not comfortable working around high voltage hire an electrician. Note: Make sure he records the breaker number and breaker amps to Vue 2 circuit number (explained below). Also make sure he dresses the cables neatly. After all he is a professional!As you make the connections you need to record the breaker number and what Vue 2 circuit number the breaker is connected to. This is important since you will need the information to set up the circuits in the monitor software.Once I had the device hooked up and working, I then determined what was connected to each breaker and corresponding Vue 2 circuit by turning on each household device one at a time (A/C, clothes washer, etc.) or by going to each wall outlet and plugging in a portable device that required noticeable watts. By observing what Vue 2 circuit showed an increase in usage I was able to develop a device mapping to Vue 2 circuit number to breaker number.In the VUE 2 software I labeled each Vue 2 circuit with the associated device name, the breaker number, and the breaker amps. This allowed me to have a breaker number to Vue 2 circuit number to device mapping with the circuit amps.The only downside to the Vue 2 is the AMPs reporting. As far as i can tell the individual mains and circuits are correctly reported in AMPs. However, the total of the mains is incorrectly calculated by totaling the two mains. This can be done for Watts/KW but not for AMPs since totaling ignores whether the result is from a 120 or 240 circuit if only 1 leg is being monitored. Either use the main with the biggest AMP usage or total the individual Vue 2 circuits to get a decent estimate. Emporia support says they want to fix this issue but there is no timeline.Yes I would buy this product again and recommend it to a friend.