PSA: $300 on those 'green' home energy monitors that never worked right

I dropped $300 on a fancy home energy monitor last spring from a startup that promised real-time solar tracking and appliance breakdowns. Six months in the app kept crashing and the sensors would disconnect every time it rained. Their support ghosted me after two emails and now the company website is just a blank page. I could have spent that cash on a simple kill-a-watt meter and some better insulation instead. Anyone else get burned by a climate tech gadget that sounded good but was total junk?

3 comments

3 Comments

vera1951mo ago

It's always the same pattern with these green gadgets... they rush them out to cash in on the trend and then abandon them once the hype fades. I've got a drawer full of smart plugs and bulbs that just stopped getting updates after a year.

the_terry1mo ago

Read an article saying some companies are building planned obsolescence right into the firmware now. They time the updates to stop right after the warranty expires.

jakeb811mo ago

Wait, they actually time the updates to stop right when the warranty runs out? That's so slimy it almost sounds fake. Don't they realize people catch on to that stuff eventually? Makes you wonder what else is baked into the code we can't even see.