From pv magazine USA
SunPower has launched its new mySunPower app, which allows homeowners to review and manage their energy generation, consumption, and battery storage settings from their mobile devices.
The app will be available to download for SunPower Equinox customers from Feb. 16 on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It also will be available to all of SunPower’s 285,000 monitoring customers at some point in the second quarter.
The app will allow customers to track how much solar their systems are generating on an hourly, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, or by time parameters that customers can set themselves. The app will also allow customers to track how much grid-supplied energy they are consuming, while monitoring the current state of their battery’s charge.
The app builds on what Jacob Wachman, SunPower's vice president of software product and engineering, calls a digital experience from the ground up. Wachman notes the different software tools that SunPower provides to digitize the entire solar system purchase and installation process.
This begins with the company’s Instant Design tool, which allows potential customers to digitally build a system that fits their needs. Customers can then buy the system and monitor installation through the mySunPower portal. The new app, which is the last step of the fully digital process, is designed to flow seamlessly with the other two services.
The user interface is something that the company prioritized throughout the app’s development. It aims to bring a new, accessible experience to customers who may not be technically experienced with their home’s energy needs.
“We wanted to make it as easy to use as possible,” said Wachman.
He said the development team looked beyond the solar industry to develop the user interface. For example, the app developers took inspiration from unlikely non-energy sources, such as the animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”
The company plans to include a warning system that will alert homeowners about impending blackouts. This could include planned outages, like Pacific Gas & Electric’s weather-related rolling blackouts in California, or a natural disaster. That upgrades will be released later in the year.
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