SIEMENS Inhab Smart Home Energy Monitor with 16-50Amp Circuit Level Sensors and 2-200Amp Main Sensors for Real Time Electricity Monitoring and Metering

I absolutely love this thing enough that I bought a second one so I could monitor every circuit in my home. You definitely should have a licensed electrician installed it, but I know electrical and it was actually incredibly easy, the app is easy to use and it works really well. I'm a smart home and technology geek so I love being able to look at every circuit in the house instantly and see see amperage usage as well as kilowatt hours. It really helps to get a good idea of what is actually being used in the house and even helped me to realize I needed to add an extra circuit in my kitchen to run my microwave, because it was pulling a lot of amperage, more than I expected.

Pretty straight forward install. Only 2 mains and 16 sensors so you have to choose wisely which 16 circuits you will monitor. I used the ethernet cable option which was truly plug and play. It can look quite messy with all of the sensor wires. You can cut the wires shorter to clean up the mess. Regardless, you never see it again when the panel cover is back on and does not hurt anything.The app was easy to install and to use. The interface is easy to use and the data is well organized and useful. The charts are great and give me a better idea of what is going on over time.

This system is incredibly powerful for the price-point, offering great value. The system logs data down to the 1-second level, which is amazing for a residential/commercial product.My review will not cover any of the Inhab Smart (switching devices).I've seen many online posts where folks installing a whole-house generator system want to monitor their power use, so they don't overload their generator. That's a good idea, but I thought why wait until after my generator system is installed? It's better to install this power monitoring system before I specified my final generator kW rating, so I've had 1-2 months of monitoring in August-September, when the power consumption driven by air conditioning loads (home and garage mini-split) are at their maximums.Unless you've been doing electrical wiring for a long time, this should be left to a Licensed Electrician. The power feeding your breaker panel must be turned off. Keep in mind that for panels which have the main 200 amp breaker "inside" the panel, that the lugs feeding the main breakers are going to be HOT, even if the main breaker is OFF. My system has a separate main breaker that's outside our home, near our meter-pan, so I could comfortably work knowing all conductors and lugs were de-energized.The pictures on the Amazon page are a bit misleading, as 1) there are only 4-6 breakers in the panel (it's nearly empty), 2) the Wi-Fi antennae is shown exiting the bottom of the panel, with the panel mounted "outside" of a wall, as opposed to normally being "inside" a wall between studs.The sensors are Current Transformers ("CTs"), and the CTs for the L1 and L2 feeds are the easiest to install, as there's generally plenty of room in this area of the panel (pic-1). And the first 1-2 CTs for the branch circuits are not too bad, because these some room to move the conductors upwards to create space around them. As successive CTs are installed further down the branch circuits, it becomes quite a challenge to get them installed due to space constraints (pics 2-3). Keep in mind that the CTs have to stay inside the plane of the panel face, so that you can get the panel cover back on.As mentioned in the instructions, the wiring leads for the CTs may be cut short or trimmed to help reduce clutter in the panel (pic-4). This project took me about 3-hours, and if you wanted to route and trim the leads for each CT (when using all of the CT sensors), then you'd probably have to add another 2-hours to your project time. As OCD as I am, I decided not to add that extra work since this will not be seen and I was able to acceptably bundle the wires (pic-5).The instructions or manual states that there's a "DIN" rail bracket for mounting, but mine did not come with any related hardware, so the DIN rail I purchased to mount to the back wall of the panel was returned. Not shown, I used a large 3M Velcro pad attached to the back of the module to affix to the panel rear wall.The Wi-Fi antennae lead is rather short, which will prevent routing it to the left or right of the panel. I used a low-voltage box below the panel for the antennae (pic 5-6). The soft rubber grommet for the antennae is totally lame, as there's simply no way for this design to provide any support or stability for the antennae. A sturdy bulk-head fitting, with a twist connector on the inside and outside would have made for a far more professional look. I'm surprised that Siemens didn't go this route.While it's not covered in the installation manual adequately, the module does have an Ethernet jack. In addition to a wired network at our home, I also have a Google-Mesh wireless network and the Inhab module worked fine with wireless connectivity. The manual / app was a little pesky to get connection set up, but performed fine after that.The Siemens app functions pretty well and has a feature to monitor 15-minute demand levels, which basically tracks the highest 15-minute period of energy consumption per month.Be careful when using the app to watch the "units" displayed on the Y-axis of graphs, as these change between kWhr (energy use per hour) and kW (approximate instantaneous power). If you want to keep track of your billing of energy, then you want to work with the kWhr units. But if you want to monitor for sizing a generator system, then you want to examine kW units.The export of logged data from the app is acceptable, but a bit cumbersome. In exporting to Excel to use "MAX" functions to identify the highest power consumption, I did find some spurious (high) reading spikes that should not have been possible for the branch circuit they were reported on. However, for my use I simply deleted an offending row here/there.I would have far preferred a PC/Windows based app interface, where I could review graphs before selecting date ranges for data export to Excel/.csv, but that's the power generation engineer in me who's been spoiled by industrial / utility power plant applications over the years.Overall, this is an incredibly power system for the money and time spent and offers tremendous insights.

Works great and as advertised. Future buyers should consider this device is made by Emporia for Siemems so I doubt there is current much difference between the two devices (other than cost). My only wish was there was the ability to add more circuit sensors then 16.

Circuit by corcuit monitoring used to be like $1000 plus a web based interface subscription. This is a bargain, easy for a handy person to install and enlightening about where one’s electricity is being consumed. For example i had no idea our fridge is the second highest user! You can’t focus a path to energy reduction if you don’t know how much energy things are using! Data!

I am from outside of USA and now I have serious problem, because I can't download the app, because I am from outside of USA. In this case, the product is GARBAGE and I loss of many. Question: Why vendor don't inform the clients, that this product is for USA ONLY or not helping with access to app??!!Get the App The easy-to-follow installation instructions are in the app! Use your phone’s camera to scan this unique QR code to: • Download the Siemens Inhab Energy app • Access the installation guide • Read important saftey information. • Start setup process. - No working, no permits.

Easy to attach around the wires in breaker box and is easily seen on WiFi giving good information on individual circuit wattage use.

Very useful. Helped to identify parasitic users in the whole house. The price was reasonable and installation process was relatively easy.

Its hard to write a bad review in terms of it does tell me my real time kWhs or the amperages. It does gie a lot of information that can help see max kWh rating spikes or if certain devices run all the time, maybe a freezer is drawing high amounts...I want to start with a big Con( and there is a pun in there)Cons1) As many have probably noticed, and I also noticed... the Seimens and the Emporia look identical. BUT when purchasing and I stand by the adage of "you get what you pay for" so I always try to by the best my budget can responsibly afford.So I chose the $600 Seimens InHabMy email is set to not show pictures upon receiving for some reason, where the Seimens logo was supposed to go the test read Emporia Logo... are you kiddingand just now I exported the Data and again with the Emporia name... well insert curse word hereSo that is garbage The pun is aa con is I feel CON'd by Seimens especially since im a master electrician and have used my Seimens Equipment, Panels and breakersSo that said, I want a disclaimer so I do not talk out of turn, Possibly Seimens needed to do some extra certification to allow users of this energy monitor to use it in professional settings? But at 100% extra cost I cant see that being a reason.. All I know is I am really disappointed I paid an extra $300Moving on to cons that would be for both units, ignoring cost2) The current transformers (the clamps) have square corners. Similar to square peg round hole, when trying to get the CTs around tight wires and they have corners and a difficult clip to lock them shut... do I need to explain that a circle shaped clamp only mays sense. Even if they were larger, the round would make all the difference3) It would be very nice to have 100 amp rated CTs that could monitor larger cable loads, eg. "100 amp sub panel" load or "Wood/ Electric furnaces" that have a 125 amp breaker. The 50 amp CTs are actually good up to 70 amps and then they are saturated which mean they cant read anymore and they will goof up the readings. I have a 200 amp panel and would really like to know how the furnace play a role in the max spiking of the kwh rating. I have clamps that barely clipped on the wires I think they are #1 RW90 wires and I am reading the furnace blower. Man the furnace runs a lot. Interesting finding meaning more insulation is required in the home.4) Not a lot can be done the the panel looks a mess after its wired, that said the connectors that go in to he InHab unit have set screws so you can dress the cable and cut them shorter then re terminate.5) I exported the data and it is in a CSV format. Meaning its an excel spread sheet with lots of #sFor some reason mine did not show the dates so I will have to call to find out why. But it isn't a nice graph you get. I believe its also only produces with kilowatt hour ratings as the measurement. you cant see it on amperages although if you sent it to a programmer they could take the data and make it more understandable at a glance.6) Not available on PC I believe, only on a mobile device. Forgive me if I'm wrong by my first attempt to get it on PC looked like it said only available for mobile devices. An due to that you only have a phone screen to look at days weeks and months of data. A large screen would certainly be superior to viewing, thats said its fantastic to be able to see it on you phone versus a PC for troubleshooting and on the job. Both ways would be beneficial thoughPro1) Shares a lot of info and in real time on what circuits are drawing what. Its very easy to monitor energy consumption. MAIN POINT OF THIS UNIT AND IT DOES THAT WELL.