The Energy Detective Spyder Mix Current Transformer

TED is pretty much the best thing going in the energy monitoring industry. I'm a developer, architect, and energy consultant, and I've tried them all. TED has open data, simple setup, amazing tech support (yes, the tech person actually picks up the phone and has an email address!), and solid, flexible gear. Some may like a more automated solution, but all the more-snazzy solutions out there have huge limitations due to proprietary protocols and tools intended to extract value from you beyond the price of the gear. TED gear is a one-time purchase that you can do anything with in perpetuity. They offer a workable basic dashboard and cloud services, but you can use whatever outside systems you want, and YOU OWN THE DATA and can get it any time. Breath of fresh air!

So far, I can say that this is really interesting. If you are looking for a payback, it will be a long time in coming. That aside, it has provided a glimpse of what is going on with my electrical appliances and issues that are cropping up. The circuits I have it monitoring are fridge, freezer, well, stove, dryer, A/C, furnace and dishwasher. The first issue addressed was my fridge which I had neglected for a couple of years. Daily consumption was high so I spent some time cleaning the cooling coils etc. According to the Spyder, consumption dropped by almost a kWh a day. My bad. The next lesson was that my well pump was operating much more frequently than it should. Without any other filter or softener regenerating, it was coming on several times a night as well as several times during the day. That tells me that my check valve is leaking and needs replacing. Finally, my freezer power consumption is higher than my fridge, despite being a chest style and manual defrost. It tells me that I will be buying a replacement in the near future. So the savings I will get on my electricity bill will eventually pay for the Spyder, but it may take a while. But by dealing with the pending issues it has identified, there should also be benefits to the appliances as they will not have to work as hard in the future. My most significant testimonial is that I intend to purchase a second unit to monitor 8 additional circuits.

Not very accurate. A load of zero can show up as 50 W and a load of 200+ W (from a solar install during a rainstorm) showed as zero. The main TED Pro unit seems to be much better (i.e., tracking changes with the info panel of the solar unit more accurately) than the Spyder add-on. I was expecting the same level of performance from both. Not sure if I would recommend the Spyder after installing it. Also, the web site (http://www.theenergydetective.com/prohomespyder.html) says you need to email support for a firmware update when adding the Spyder to an existing Pro installation. I emailed, then after a few hours got tired of waiting (it was a Saturday, to be fair) and started Googling. I didn't need an update - just needed to go to System Settings -> Product ID and click the check box with the tiny little "Use Spyder 1" above it. Easy once you know, but not mentioned anywhere in the Spyder materials that I could find.

This is a must have accessory for the Ted Pro Home. The 60A CTs are accurate within probably 10% or so, the 20A CTs however are off by closer to 45% - that is the 20A CTs read almost DOUBLE the actual draw on the circuit (as compared to the main MTU and an accurate handheld ammeter. I had to manually adjust each of the 20A loads in the Footprints software for semi-accurate readings.If there's a way to increase the accuracy for the 20A CTs, I'll up this to 5 stars.If you're shelling out the money for the TED Pro, you should really have this. Makes narrowing down energy hogs in the home a lot easier.

Worked great and easy to install. Helped me track down the big power drain in my house and in two months paid for itself. Hint it was the pool. Easy to install yourself but plan ahead on where you will mount everything as the wires get tangled quickly and it will look messy.

This was easy to install and now I can track all of my power use.

Works great with my existing Ted