The 5 Best Powercost monitors (2023 reviews)

Not everyone likes to purchase monitor for their regular usage, but the emporia smart plug would be an anomoly. This unit can support multiple current transformer clamps to track other circuits or the entire home. It provides real time and historical energy usage. It includes solar monitoring, ev charging, and individual outlet monitoring. The clamp that fits around the wire of the circuit you want to track usage on is super easy to install and comes with a nice long cable. It allows you to export a cvs file so you can bring the data into excel.

Set up is fairly easy if you've ever done any electrical work, and the app walks you through it step-by-step. This is great for large appliances on dedicated circuits.

Why We Like This:

Utility rate setting that takes care of time-of-use
Very complete system for energy monitoring
Great device to monitor your electrical usage
Ability to clear historical data from individual channels

Best For High Use: Sense Smart Plug

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The sense smart plug's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. It is great way to track solar production and find energy hogs. Follow your instant watts or your average daily usage, it’s extremely intuitive and it is able to detect and identify 3 different refrigerators in the first 2 weeks. It includes two sensors for current monitoring and two voltage monitoring wires. It also shows you how much energy your house is using second to second in order to identify any devices that are using more energy than expected.

Flex has more sensors to monitor additional equipment or services such as solar or standby generators. It can take anywhere from a few minutes up to 45 minutes to register if a device has turned on. It does read the voltage, and it does not log it over time. It is good for verifying electric usage and billing.

Why We Like This:

Save time, money, effort and maybe even your house
Very satisfying watching/knowing how much energy each device uses
Fun, useful appliance with a bright future
Automatically detects many things in the house

Best For main panel: Sense Powercost Monitor

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Best part: sense powercost monitor costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. If you're only looking for a whole-house power reading that you can view remotely in real-time from a mobile device, there are some less-costly options out there. The Sense Home Energy Monitor is compatible with most split-phase 120/240V residential electrical panels in North America. It can even detect between a small fridge and small freezer both using nearly the same power. It is able to provide a total electrical usage of your home in realtime.

The pickup on the solar/sub panel leads will show you the watts that are being fed to the sub panel. It has recognized that they are pretty accurate as long as they are inductive loads (things with motors) however, the big power hogs like the oven, hot tub, and dryer it has done a terrible job keeping track of. This monitor could also use the ability to use more cts as many circuits are required to be dedicated like a well, fridge, sump pump, and more.

Why We Like This:

A great tool to manage energy in your home
Panel circuit breakers designed for single wire attachment
Great product tech tool for home

Best With Energy Monitoring: Emporia Powercost Monitor

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Not everyone likes to purchase monitor for their daily purpose, but the emporia powercost monitor would be an anomoly. This system could be a whole lot more powerful and useful with just a little bit of thought in its development. The product gives you multiple views i.e., per second, day, week, and month. There are two innocuous looking bars at the back of the panel that run vertically, and if you do not turn off the main breaker and touch those bars, you might as well go swing from the power lines coming into your house.

The unit and sensors measure voltage and then uses that to calculate your energy usage in the app. These are able to read more than 400 amps per each sensor. There is no way to disable the control function of the monitoring devices, and they are very thick, which means you can't push your fridge back to the wall anymore.

Why We Like This:

Moderately easy to install if you're confident in the panel
Installation is very easy for people with electrical skills
Good brand reputation

Best For AC: Neurio Powercost Monitor

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The neurio powercost monitor's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. If you are comfortable with AC and breaker panels the install is pretty straight forward, otherwise one could have an electrician do it just as well. It provides a real-time view on how your home’s electricity is being used, displayed on your phone or web app. It is designed for, and it does it very well. It provides bill forecasting so you know what your utility bill will be before it arrives. It also tracks solar generation with tight accuracy.

The app has a lot of bells and whistles for energy useage monitoring.

Why We Like This:

Highly accurate total home monitoring, within 1% – independently verify your energy bills
Delivers what they promise