Aquanta water heater controller assessment: A dapper solution to your condominium’s biggest energy waster

Aquanta first got here to our consideration formulation succor in 2014 with a truly straightforward but very wise conception: a tool that controls your water heater so it produces hot water handiest whenever you wish it, in put of holding 40 or 50 gallons of water hot 24/7. Since then, Aquanta has mostly worked with public utilities to gain its product into properties. The firm is now promoting its controller snort to customers, and after spending some quality time with a assessment unit, I narrate it’s a exact be conscious.

Basically based totally on the U.S. Department of Vitality, heating water accounts for about 18 percent of a home’s energy consumption. That makes it the 2d-largest contributor to your energy-linked utility bill (after heating and cooling), at a fee to the favorite family of $400 to $600 every yr. That it is doubtless you’ll possibly narrate of an on a conventional foundation tank water heater as a major thermos. It heats up 40 or 50 gallons of water and strives to preserve all that water hot so as that it’s on hand any time you wish it. Nonetheless at the same time as you’re adore most of us, you possibly need an complete bunch hot water handiest once or twice a day: in the morning for a shower, in the evening to scrub dishes, and per chance factual once or twice every week to flee your dishwasher and wash your clothes.

One solution would be to interchange your regular tank water heater with a tankless mannequin that heats water on query. The Vitality Department estimates that those appliances are two to once or twice more atmosphere pleasant than a tank water heater. Nonetheless no longer handiest are they costly, you’ll possibly need each and each a talented electrician and a talented plumber to set up one. What’s more, the agency says you furthermore mght can simply no longer recoup the acquisition and installation fee by assignment of decrease utility bills sooner than the unit wears out and desires to gain replaced.

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Four preserve watch over strategies

An Aquanta controller prices $149 and likewise that it is doubtless you’ll set up it your self in about 20 minutes. There are devices for every and each electrical and natural-gasoline/propane water heaters, but there would possibly possibly be no plumbing eager. The tool provides four ways of controlling your water heater, balancing your desire for hot water with saving energy. Aquanta Intelligence, the default choice, relies on an algorithm that analyzes your hot water consumption and mechanically turns the water heater on and off accordingly. That it is doubtless you’ll possibly use from three devices here: Less Efficient, Efficient, and Most Efficient.

The 2d option is handiest for those that practice a strictly regimented agenda: That it is doubtless you’ll possibly space timers that can flip the water heater on and off at specified times. This option is barely like the pre-Nest-era programable HVAC thermostats in that it allows you to assemble one agenda for day by day of the week; one agenda for weekdays and one more for weekends; or one agenda for weekdays, a 2d for Saturdays, and a third for Sundays).

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The third option is for electrical water heater dwelling owners whose utility provides a “time of day” price that makes electricity more costly sooner or later of times of height query and more affordable sooner or later of off-height hours. Compatible take your particular utility from a drop-down menu. This would possibly possibly fire up your water heater handiest when energy prices are decrease.

At final, a thermostat preserve watch over option retains your water at a defined temperature. Right here’s clearly the least atmosphere pleasant reach, and it ought to’t elevate the temperature past the tank’s mechanical space point anyway, but at the same time as you’re huge choosy about water temperature, the option is there.

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Whereas you choose to like to connect diagram more energy, and likewise you furthermore mght can also be wide awake to live it, that it is doubtless you’ll tap an Away button in the app to expose the controller to flip the water heater off because you acquired’t be home to desire hot water. That it is doubtless you’ll possibly use both a Now surroundings or specify a future time that you’ll be gone, after which demonstrate the time the Away duration ought to raze and water heating ought to renew.

This would be most functional whenever you leave home for a commute or a weekend getaway, because Aquanta’s algorithm can’t react snappy ample to acknowledge that you’re no longer using the same outdated amount of hot water.

Whereas you live up for a sudden need for more hot water than favorite, that it is doubtless you’ll click on a Enhance button in the app, specify when the enhance duration ought to birth (now or sooner or later in due route), and the diagram in which prolonged it’ll final. This would possibly possibly also be anyplace from 30 minutes to a plump two weeks (a convenient option at the same time as you’re having prolonged-term company, as an instance).

I faded the Aquanta Intelligence option sooner or later of my overview duration, which determines the share of hot water that’s on hand in response to readings from a pair of temperature sensors (more on that in a puny). The algorithm takes a bunch of other files into fable as successfully, including the water heater’s capability, the quantity of adults and youngsters residing in the dwelling, and the fixtures and appliances that employ hot water (clothes washer, dishwasher, single-tackle taps, etc).

Our Aquanta abilities

I was once jubilant to rely on that the temperature of my hot water didn’t fluctuate famous at all. The app constantly reported the temperature interior a spread of about 126 degrees Fahrenheit to 134 degrees F. The lowest share I ever saw the “hot water on hand” studying dip to was once about 86 percent—and that was once on a day after we ran our dishwasher in the morning because we washed a few dozen jars in preparation for canning. I ought to screech, then again, that I in actuality like a separate tankless water heater for the double shower in my master bathroom. My regular tank heater, on the different hand, provides my dishwasher, washing machine, guest bathroom bath/shower, and the total sinks in the condominium.

Michael Brown / IDG

The Aquanta app displays graphs representing your energy consumption on a day-to-day, weekly, and month-to-month foundation, and this can even also be tracked in therms, BTUs (British Thermal Devices), or kWhs (kilowatt hours). The app also reports your moderate day-to-day, weekly, and month-to-month energy utilization; your lowest utilization sooner or later of the given duration; and whether your utilization is on the upswing or downswing.

My weekly reports demonstrate my heaviest utilization occurs Friday via Monday morning, which is wise because those are the times my accomplice is home with me. She’s at her job in San Francisco the leisure of the week. We rent an condominium for her there because it’s 180 miles away. My hot water utilization begins to plug up on Thursday as I live laundry and flee the dishwasher sooner than she gets home.

What the Aquanta app doesn’t live is build this reporting in a major context. Whereas it’s enlightening to rely on utilization trends, I’d be diagram more drawn to seeing how my household’s hot water utilization compares to equally sized households. Will we employ more or less the favorite amount of energy to heat water? In equity, Aquanta can even simply no longer but like a major ample installed heart-broken of users to assemble such prognosis. Per chance that feature will come later.

Michael Brown / IDG

The diagram in which it works

So, how does the Aquanta live its thing? The major preserve watch over unit hosts two temperature probes, one which you strap to the water heater’s cold-water supply and one which gets strapped to its temperature and stress (T&P) relief valve. The latter measures the temperature of the water in the tank, and the veteran determines how famous hot water is on hand (a calculation based mostly in fragment on the scale of the tank and the diagram in which continually water flows via the pipe to stock up it). Neither probe is a lab-grade instrument, but they gain the job completed with out needing an intrusive installation.

Aquanta also provides an non-principal leak sensor that that you would possibly possibly be scurry in and put in the water heater’s drain pan. Might simply level-headed your water heater fail, water will gain in the drain pan and space off the leak sensor to ship a push notification to the Aquanta app. The identical will happen if your T&P valve opens attributable to dangerously overheated water or too-excessive stress in the tank (although the T&P valve on my tank was once plumbed to empty outside the condominium). The controller ought to, then again, shut down your water heater sooner than it gets out of preserve watch over.

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Might simply level-headed the probe detect water, a too-quiet terror on the preserve watch over unit will birth beeping, and the app will alert you to the leak (even if the app is no longer truly originate). The sensor wasn’t nearly as responsive as both the Flo by Moen or Roost leak sensors I’ve reviewed beforehand, then again it’s level-headed a just exact purchase for one more $25. Besides to alerting me to the presence of water more swiftly, those two devices can even also video display other environmental stipulations, similar to ambient temperature and humidity. Every of those products fee twice as famous as Aquanta’s add-on sensor.

Whenever you’ve installed the Aquanta and curved up its probes, you’ll connect the controller to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi community and set up the app to your smartphone (Android/iOS). Aquanta provides hooks to IFTTT that that you would possibly possibly be employ to space off other dapper home devices. One instance would be to like your dapper bulbs flash or flip coloration if the controller detects a water leak.

Backside line

Whereas you’re constructing out a dapper home, the following water heater you got is customarily a dapper mannequin. Nonetheless for $149, that it is doubtless you’ll reap the money- and energy-saving advantages of a dapper water heater along with your present equipment.

There’s room for improvement in Aquanta’s app. It asks an complete bunch questions about your water heater and your household, which its algorithm takes into fable, but I’d adore to rely on a comparison of my hot water employ and energy consumption to identical users. The non-principal leak sensor has some boundaries, then again it’s less expensive ample that I’d recommending adding it to your repeat.

• Aquanta Water Heater Controller

  Heating water accounts for a major chunk of your condominium’s utility bill. Aquanta’s controller will attach you money by expecting whenever that it is doubtless you need to have hot water and turning your water heater on handiest prolonged ample to fulfill that need.

  Pros

  • Saves money and energy
  • Easy to set up
  • That it is doubtless you’ll possibly both space it and neglect it or micro-manage your water heater

  Cons

  • Does no longer compare your energy consumption to identical households
  • Non-principal leak sensor is a puny bit sluggish to react

Michael covers the dapper-home, home-leisure, and home-networking beats, working in the dapper home he constructed in 2007.