I Installed a SPAN Smart Home Panel, Should You?

This is one of the most thorough reviews of SPAN Panel and Drive we’ve seen yet, Ricky! We love the fact that SPAN is turning your vision of a fully electric net zero home into a reality. Keep up the amazing work. ⚡

I can see this tech is useful, what concerns me is the dependence on a proprietray app. Software should be based on open standards, e.g. so you connect to it via a web interface. When people invest in hardware like this, they might expect to continue using it in 30, 40, 50+ years time. App stores might be obsolete by then, or dare I say it, some businesses fail so wont pay to keep their app available or updated. + Also they have to be idiot proof. Don't assume the next person living in the house will be tech savvy. They may be elderly or too busy and want it to "just work" by default.

Approaching 1 yr with SPAN. The Weekly updates are one of my favorites, like solar generation. Seeing the "red screen" when the grid is down, but my house is running is WOW. Supporting innovative forward looking people, priceless.

Already have 400amp service. Everything is electric, but also efficient, e.g. the upstairs mini split is almost not noticeable on usage. But with 52 solar panels the bill is often down to single digit.

I've been wanting the SPAN panel since I first heard about it last year. I acquired an F150 Lightning last year, along with their Charge Station Pro (EVSE). My goal was to have the full V2G functionality (whole home backup) and monitor/control all of it with the SPAN. Since SunRun is Ford's partner for the Charge Station Pro installation, and SunRun is also a SPAN partner, all was looking good. Until they (SunRun) told me that they would not install a CSP and a SPAN panel together. No real explanation as to why, just a hard "No". I've been in limbo on all of it ever since. I've been waiting, hoping that something would shake out, and this would become a supported configuration. I've also been following the build out on the Transport Evolved channel, as they are doing the same thing I want, but without SunRun as the installer. They've had some hurdles, but last I saw, they had it functioning. I'm waiting for a follow up after a little time for them to report on how it's going. I would love to see Ford, SunRun, and SPAN all sit down together to work out a cookie cutter solution. (insert Futurama 'take my money' meme here)

This one was perfect. The fact that you can adjust your consumption, or even time it based on solar or grid prices using this device is amazing. And the SW able to talk to batteries and cars - just perfect! I have similar thing done DIY using HomeAssistant and lots of integrations, more to come, but still - having this in one (beautiful) package is great. Congrats to SPAN on the product and to the team for the great video.

We love our Span panel! We installed it in 2021 when we installed solar panels and a Power Wall and the main 3 reasons were 1. We had to upgrade our service anyway, 2. We were switching to heat pumps to completely replace our natural gas heat and 3. We didn't want to be without heat in a New England winter by limiting ourselves to the circuits on a critical load panel. I appreciate that we're on the same journey toward energy independence! We're 2 years free of natural gas in our home and with no service interruptions thanks to span and the other upgrades to our home. Keep us posted on how it's going for you!

Perhaps this is a European perspective, but whilst this is undoubtedly very cool, I can't help think it's a solution looking for a problem. Most of the supply feeds over here in the UK are 60A or 80A. Outside commercial sites, i.e. people running workshops from their garage (and I mean heavy machinery like lathes, laser cutters, etc., not portable power tools), I don't know anyone who has needed a service upgrade, and that's even with EV charging. 1. Whilst there are some very powerful EV chargers out there, realistically, how often do people actually need to fast charge their vehicles? I presume most people plug them in when they get home, then as long as they're ready to go when they leave home in the morning, I suspect most of us don't really care how long it takes. So you can either 'slow charge' the vehicle over the course of 10 hours or so, or you can delay the charge until after your high draw activities have finished (i.e. after cooking dinner). (Alec over at Technology Connections makes the case for slower EV charging in one of his videos). 2. How often, realistically, do people actually run all their kitchen stuff, their washer/dryers, and charge their car(s) simultaneously? Can't speak for others, but I have to try really hard to push my instantaneous usage over about 10kW - and that's with a UK kettle, oven, and microwave, as well as washing machine, all running simultaneously. 3. I suspect a lot of what this does could be accomplished locally/offline using some low cost smart plugs running Tasmota or similar. I already have them connected to my 'high draw' devices like washing machine and dishwasher. Shelly even do some smart switches that fit into the standard DIN rails on consumer units for higher draw devices on dedicated circuits like ovens. So I know, for example, that the most my washing machine will ever draw is about 2.7kW, and even that's only for a matter of a few minutes at the start of the cycle when it's heating the water. 4. It seems like this would create a single point of failure. At the moment, most consumer units are pretty 'dumb' - the most exciting things in there is an RCBO, and if it develops a fault, it'll just break that circuit (e.g. one ring main, etc.); it's pretty rare for a fault to knock out a whole consumer unit. But now the consumer unit has a lot more smarts, what happens if it develops a fault? Does it revert to dumb mode? Does it fail gracefully? Does it just shut off power to everything until fixed?

this is exactly what I wanted to see, I was struggling with the idea of how the grid could manage everyone going full electric. thank you for sharing this

I can do this without Span, but I do a lot of baby sitting. My panel is outside and I'd hate to put the Span panel outside in phoenix. I'm happy a company has come up with one of these. Solar + Storage + a monitoring app is a data junkie's paradise.

The most efficient heat pumps are VERTICAL ground source heat pumps; they drill a few bore holes which are only a couple of inches across, but they go 200+ meters down, so they reach areas which are constant temperatures all year round! Horizontal ground source heat pumps require huge amounts of land & are less efficient. Air source heat pumps are the least efficient. I have done a lot of research into these & can guarantee that a vertical ground source heat pump is your best option; the bore holes take up barely any surface area & the more you have, the better they work. :)

This is something we have had in the UK for many years as far as the EV charger goes at least by way of the Myenergi Zappi. It does the load shifting from solar excess to EV but an underused maybe because it is not known by many is the Zappi also has a setting where you tell it the max supply capacity which will change the power usage based on that. It does also take into account battery input from solar storage. I think in the UK at least where AC is uncommon residentially it makes sense to have this in the EV charger not the CU it's likely to be the only thing to push the property over the 80-100amp feeds most UK houses have.

Thank you. Another important upgrade will be if SPAN could talk to the grid operator, for a smarter grid.

20+ years off grid with just a 1Kw system and today I charged my EV Ebike and went for a 20 mile ride to the store. I also ran my microwave, water pump, laptop and lights. Not hot enough for AC here but I can also run my 85 watt Evaporative cooler off that system just fine. I can also fix my system myself and get the parts if needed. Just sayin...

I work in the electrical industry and have been saying this for a decade...time to integrate digital tech into residential power distribution! It's like the gas/electric vehicle argument, having capacity to drive 500Km sitting in a driveway when you only typically need 100Km. Same with service power where 200Amps is rarely ever used, not a zero possibility but still in the less than 1 percent range (otherwise you may have equipment lifespan & load issues). So it's time for power management at all levels. We can do it for EV charging but still have capacity issues for other loads! Well done Span!!!! If you need a Canadian representative let me know!! Maybe I'll knock on your door?

Hey Ricky! It's Tim from Drivyn. About how you mentioned California has too much solar and not enough storage at the Tesla Club meeting. What if the power companies incentivized businesses to put in free chargers for employees to help the grid during the day/peak solar production to stabilize it by providing a place for all that energy to go? 🤔

At my old house, I could run my standard base line load, the electric oven and charge the EV. But if somebody used the hot water in the electric hot water tank came on then it would blow the main breaker. At the new house I don't have those issues, one is just me two I have a gas stove a gas hot water tank and a gas dryer. I didn't have a whole house AC at either house. I don't think it's a good idea to put all of your energy eggs in one basket there are things that gases ideally suited for producing heat is one of them. I would love to have a range that was a combination gas and electric a gas oven and an induction cooktop, but unfortunately those are really expensive, and out of my budget. I'm hoping to get a smart panel in the next couple of years and I think that'll be a huge addition, I use empora right now and The information it gives me has been pivotal in allowing me to effectively manage my energy usage.

Very cool, ad or no ad, this is a product we need to know about - thanks dude!

I like the idea of span panel. I contacted span and I did the evaluation of my electrical panel. I didn’t get the panel because I was waiting for IRA tax /federal benefits. I took my time to evaluate my situation and responded later to the span person and I apologized for my delayed response. I tried to contact the span person in 2023 when IRA was a law. I got no response from span person and I even contacted another span person asking if my contact from span was still with the company. I was told that my contact was still with the company and emails will be forwarded to my contact. I did not any response from my contact who originally spoke to me. Span could be a great product but I will never find out.

I love your videos, keep up the good work. I've been monitoring my own usage, and I'd like to add that heat pump water heater is like an extra refrigerator... under 1kW while running and not a concern. A microwave, also under 2kW and not much concern. The big draws for me (besides something like an EV or HVAC) are a resistive heat dryer, electric oven, especially pre-heating, and running multiple stove top burners. Span looks really neat, thank you for the informative video.