Solar monitoring apps are supposed to make life easier for home energy management. But when the user experience is dominated by constant crashes, confusing interfaces and inaccurate information, some apps only make things harder. Here’s a rundown of the worst reviewed solar monitoring apps available in Australia.
Which Solar Monitoring Apps Are Poorly Rated?
Following on from our story last week on the best solar monitoring apps in Australia, we’re now taking a look at the options with the lowest review scores for phones on Google Play and the Apple App store at the time of writing.
Interestingly, some of the worst-rated apps are associated with highly reputable inverter brands like Fronius – just going to show that good solar manufacturers aren’t necessarily good app developers.
If you want to buy a particular inverter brand but don’t want to use the associated monitoring platform, a third party solution like Catch Control is an option, but this involves an additional expense.
Growatt ShinePhone
Google Play Store: 2.1 out of 5 average rating
Apple App Store: 1.8 out of 5 average rating
What Users Liked: Some customers say it is adequate for basic solar monitoring.
What Users Complained About: Very buggy and annoying to set up, frequent dongle resets, app freezes, slow data updates that can take more than 5 minutes at a time, lacks advanced functions to customise key settings, graph colors are too similar, inaccurate weather forecasts.
For detail on Growatt inverters used with the app, read our review.
Fronius Solar.web
Google Play Store: 2 out of 5 average rating
Apple App Store: 1.9 out of 5 average rating
What Users Liked: Some customers have welcomed the lifting of a paywall for some features and an improved interface.
What Users Complained About: App freezes, inconsistent data display, difficulties with logging in and two-factor authentication, a history of paywalling key features, missing error codes, poor support.
For detail on Fronius inverters used with the app, read our review.
Goodwe SEMS Portal
Google Play Store: 2.5 out of 5 average rating
Apple App Store: 1.8 out of 5 average rating
What Users Liked: Good presentation.
What Users Complained About: App crashes after updates, missing consumption data, connectivity issues with new routers, broken landscape mode, long-standing complaints unaddressed.
For detail on Goodwe inverters used with the app, read our review.
SolisCloud
Google Play Store: 2.5 out of 5 average rating
Apple App Store: 2.4 out of 5 average rating
What Users Liked: Timely device failure notifications, good historical data.
What Users Complained About: Difficult to set up, difficult/impossible to log in, difficult to contact support, complex menus, “real-time” data updates lag by several minutes.
For detail on Solis inverters, read our review.
For solar monitoring apps that offer a more appetising user experience, check out our rundown on the best-rated solar monitoring apps in Australia.
About Max Opray
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Can only agree re the Growatt app!
And behold, download some data. It comes in an Excel 97 format and the formatting is such that the fields with numeric data in are wrongly formatted and cannot even be added up! I contacted them and they told me that what you see is what you get.
Hi William,
In the industry they’re called Nowatt for a reason, sadly.
It’s a shame as the 3 inverters I have are 3 and 5 years old and working nicely since their respective installations without any issues. Problem points are the dongles and the awful buggy software.
Hi William,
The notion that any of these makers can offer a “10 year warranty” on a product, with only 2 years coverage on the connectivity they need to maintain the warranty on the battery, is just a rort.
The ACCC should step in to sort this.
Maybe you ran out of space but SMA Energy app deserves a rotten tomato for sure. They took what I thought was a reasonably good app, good look and feel, everything made sense and was in the right place to an app that is now almost rubbish. They “upgraded” it, by downgrading or removing features. It took several 1 star reviews from myself and others just to get historical data back into the app but still far from good. I feel my SMA loyalty is being tested again. The other time was the second failure of their “you have to buy our more expensive 3 phase Energy meter cause we dont have a single phase model available or approved”. Side question, has anyone else had these die? They just stop communicating, reset works for a while, then i needed to turn off the main switch, now it’s dead dead for the 2nd time.
Mark, I thought my SMA monitoring system was great until I compared the information with my suppliers invoice. Quite different and now I am not sure how to find out which set of info is correct
Glenn Tanner.
Goodwe Sems Portal among the worst? You’re kidding, right? I’ve been using it for nearly five years and I can’t fault it! Installed and loaded on day one of our solar system and has never missed a beat. And readings tested against other measures have shown to be spot on!
A mate who has just had his system installed loves it too. His functions even better as it shows not only solar input but also his homes energy consumption in real time and how much of that is solar vs grid. I’m afraid our 5 year old inverter doesn’t have that capability. Not sure if it’s possible to have it upgraded to include that very useful feature?
This is not our opinion – this is what review averages indicate, but glad to hear it works for you.
Of note, the SEMS portal app notified users quite a while back that they should switch to SEMS+ app. It’s much the same tbh, but I’ve found both to be fine.
Does need good WiFi of course, and maybe even a separate little extender network that doesn’t have fancy features enabled (I had to do this for my EV charger so my GE/Goodwe inverter is using it too) – I suspect tricky WiFi signal at the inverter location may be a factor in many of the reviews.
I use SEMS+ which I believe is the latest version and it easy to use give me as much information as I need. I am not a techi so it may not suit someone who is.
Cheers
Paul.
Agreed. No issues with Goodwe SMES+. All Data together with graphs all indicates live data.
I am not a fan of the SEMS+ app. It doesn’t keep you logged in on the web, and from time to time it just gets things wrong (battery level drops 10% in one minute). I’ve had a 30kW inverter and 39kWh of Goodwe batteries for 3+ years and can’t recommend any part of their system, especially the software stack.
But their SEMS+ management app is 100 times better than their policy management app, which is even worse (and only works if you are on the local network with the inverter).
Hi Bryan,
Have you seen the SEMS+ app?
I understand it’s been updated recently.
https://au-semsplus.goodwe.com/
Huawei Fusion Solar should have got a special mention. Although the Fusion Solar app is basic it seems to work OK and the inverter has worked flawlessly since installation, access to the app is shut down and unsupported by the supplier once the inverter warranty runs out (63 months).
Can’t agree more with the Fronius App. Some things are better on the App, and others require a browser. Trying to update firmware is a nightmare. I think their cybersecurity risk mitigation is to make it impossible to log in to the inverter.
Just move to Energy Manager and automate your energy at the same time via home assistant.
Problem solved.
https://energymanager.com.au/usersc/join.php?ref=FDVLFTGP
My brother (in NSW) and I (in Vic) both have Victron battery inverters plus PV inverters in the system. In my case, the PVs are Fronius – great units, but they can keep their monitoring. The Victron monitoring is superb. There’s the phone interface, but I prefer to log in over LAN, for a bigger screen on the desktop PC, on the coffee table beside my feet. Comfy. History – hourly/daily/monthly/yearly is a few clicks away on their website – not just for the system, but for each individual array string. You can count the clouds passing! The phone app is good for checking on the BEV charging when I’m running around, though.
Victron does limit you to a 48V battery, but mine’s 46 kWh, fused for 15 kW delivery, so no big deal. That may limit rebate options, but I paid $390/kWh for automotive grade LFP 2 yrs ago, no rebate. My BMS reports individual cell voltages, cycle counts, the lot. That’s Chinese, but great GUI.
OK, too hard for most. But the monitoring is superb. Just sayin’.
I have no issues with the Fronius app. I does what it’s supposed to do, but yes data can be a bit slow to update.
I don’t mind using Solar.web on the iMac to look deeper into data like what both systems generated individually etc.
Have had the Huawei inverter system for just on 5 years. the app is basic but then again so am I. A problem arose however when the app indicated a faulty power collector. I can see power generated incoming to the inverter but from there I don’t have a clue whether the power generated is being consumed and or fed to the grid. Huawei in its wisdom have no local support technicians and so I am left in limbo. Thoughts anyone.
Hi Ian,
Have to spoken to the good people at iStore?
They use hardware manufactured by Huawei but use their own support, software & app.
There’s a good chance they’ll at least know what the system should look like and whether parts are available.
Whilst Goodwe are treating us with absolute contempt here in WA, with no prospect whatsoever of the Goodwe single phase 10kW/48kWh ESA systems being available here in WA, this year, before the SRES subsidy is reduced by about 1250AUD, and, no clear indication of whether or when the systems will be available in WA, despite the systems being pretended to be launched eight months ago (big show of an imaginary product) in Sydney, the Goodwe SEMS portal is quite good – it could be improved, by the addition of some additional features, but, the cartesian line graph shows dynamic (refreshed about every 10s) values of
1. PV generation
2. Household load
3. Battery charge/discharge rate
4. Grid electricity import/export rate, and, importantly,
5. Battery State Of Charge.
The information also shows the BESS State of health, and the date of commissioning, so that the rate of deterioration of the BESS can be monitored and analysed.
It also shows 50kWh BESS is appropriate incl for 8kW panels.
Also, the SEMS portal allows (to a degree, with additional capability required) configuration of the system by the user, including such facilities, as, for example, for hybrid inverters, setting the amount of energy (as a percentage of the BESS capacity), that is reserved for emergency backup power, so, if 20% is the setting, not discharging to below 20%, except as emergency backup power, and, setting charging of the BESS, from the grid electricity supply, both by time interval of the charging from the grid, and, the limit of the BESS capacity, to which, the charging from the grid, will occur. The second capability, makes use of Time Of Use grid electricity pricing plans, to minimise the cost of grid electricity consumption.
As I have said, the SEMS portal can be improved, with the addition of extra functionality that is not yet present, but, for me, I believe that the SEMS portal is probably the best so far, that I have seen.
Conspicuous by its absence in the above article, is the inclusion of screenshots of the output from the maligned monitoring applications, showing lack of substance and justification of the maligning of the applications.
This is one of the instances where, given that all comments posted, are subject to moderation, and, therefore, inappropriate imagery could be censored out, we should be able to submit with our Comments posts, at least a couple of images, that substantiate what we post, and, to counter the unsubstantiated maligning shown above.
As I have said elsewhere, when I selected the current hybrid system (PV/BESS), that I selected, one of the significant considerations, was the Goodwe SEMS portal, that showed to be the best available at the time, and, is probably still the best.
It is interesting that none of the social media trolling above, includes any illustrations of what the trolls are complaining about.
I could provide screenshots to justify my comments – not allowed.
The justification is very clearly stated in the second and third words of the title.
The article presents a summary of apps as rated by their users – not a comprehensive review of each app according to specified criteria.
Ah, the court of public opinion – where uninformed loud noise carries more weight than (the missing) evidence and informed statements.
An example – the first troll from the antisocial media, attacking the SEMS portal; “I am not able to register user for the seems (sic) portal” – if the installation had been completed, the installer should have set up the SEMS portal account, and, provided the details to the system owner.. If the installer did not do that, then, the question arises as to what else has also not been completed, in the incomplete system installation, and, thence, the question as to whether the system is safe, if installation has not been completed.
In the second example, the claim that the portal shows only a fifth of the power that is otherwise shown as being generated, leads to the question as to why the customer did not contact the installer, to have the problem resolved.
The trolls are simply noise.
I’m surprised by the Fronius one. I’ve been quite happy with the latest version. My main gripe with it that it lacks some of the features of Web Portal.
I’ve been using the Fronius app for 18 months and I love it. It’s easy to read and use, and I like the Smart Charge facility where the battery can be force charged from the grid using off-peak electricity on those cloudy winter days, even when I’m not home. It’s not plug and play, but it does manage a fairly complex solar system so I have learned how to use it. I have no problems updating firmware, and directly accessing the Inverter’s web browser via its wifi point is simple if you have the correct passwords.