Smart Water Heater Timer: Optimize Hot Water Usage - Compatible with Alexa - Installs in Minutes, No Plumbing Required. Compatible with Electric Water Heaters.

The main benefit of this product is that it allows you to prevent your water heater from turning on, either manually or under a schedule, so that it does not consume gas when you don't need hot water. Doing this From experience I can tell doing this reduces your gas bill cost, helping you to save money by turning it off when you don't need your water hot, for example when you are sleeping or not at home. But it has some limitations.How it works: Through a com cable that plugs into your traditional water heater thermostat control, this device connects your water heater wirelessly to an app in your phone, so you can turn it off or on when you want, rather than having it running 24/7.PROSYou can automatically prevent your water heater from running when you do not need hot water and get back on when you need it.You can set a timer so that your water heater works on a schedule for every day or the week or specific days and times.At any time you can see if your water is hot or not on your phone, and you can “boost” the water heater if you happen to need hot water outside the schedule you have previously set.It is easy to install, provided that your gas water heater is not too old. Mine is a A.O. Smith Signature 100, traditional natural gas model. (check compatibility on their website)CONSI think they should do a better job explaining in plain English what this product does and what it doesn’t, so you don't have to figure it out at the time of use.Poor user manual (if you are like me, who like to understand how things work, you will be emailing them for basic questions not addressed in the manual)The temperature reading is not completely accurate,. Expect a difference of about 5F degrees below the actual water temperature (BTW, remember that the water temperature is controlled only by the water heater thermostat control)No phone customer support. Only email and they may take a few days to answer.There is confusion and problems because there are two versions of that app for Aquanta, plus the website portal, all of which work to some extent and relate to your same account. However only the latest app version is working 100%, at the time of this review is version 2.7.0, the older app and the website can not at this point update your profile and preferences. I hope they fix these discrepancies because it is useful to also have the option of using the website portal from a computer.VERDICTI think it is amazing at what it does, letting your control wirelessly whether or not and when your traditional water heater is on or off. For that reason alone, I think is worth it. If they would fix the discrepancies between their website, their app, and their older app, plus make a better manual, and have better customer support, this product would deserve five stars.Update February 25, 2024I updated my review to five stars, because after two years, Aquanta keeps working fine, turning my traditional water heater into a smart device and saving me money in gas bills. Here a few notes about Aquanta operation and what that means to you:1. To know if your unit got disconnected from wifi, look for CURRENT STATUS in the HOME section of the AQUANTA app.2. Confused by the meaning of the color of the lead lights?Blinking: your unit is not properly connected to the network and searching for WIFI signal.Green: Aquanta is in monitoring mode, your water heater is working as if aquante was not there.Red: Aquanta is keeping your water heater off. Blue: Aquanta is letting the water heater work, but your water heater is off because water is already hot).Purple: Water heater is on and burning gas to heat the water.3. To fix problems connecting with wifi, it appears it is best to have your bluetooth enagled while engaging aquanta to your home wifi network. And... if after working for some time it stops connecting, you may need to disable wep3-wep2 mix and choose wep2 only option.

Easy install and you do not have to do any plumbing. I have not had it installed for a long period of time. I like the fact that is shows how much energy you are using and that you can do everything from your phone. Adding the app was not any problem. Thanks, I hope this will make a difference with my electric bill.

TLDR: Lots of quality problems with this device and complete lack of support from the Aquanta. I highly recommend AGAINST buying this product.Update: From 3 stars down to 1 due to extremely poor support experienceA few weeks after purchasing this item, the reported hot water level dropped to 0% and stayed there. The device seems to have a bug that will cause this if the water and power are shut off for some period of time. Oddly, power cycling a second time resolved the problem.Next, a couple weeks later the app reported a huge spike in power usage. After this, the app stopped reporting any usage data, which is one of the key features of the device/app. I contacted support again and they supposedly tried to fix the issue by (supposedly) installing updated firmware. I say "supposedly" because another shortcoming of the app/device is that it doesn't show the firmware version, so there's no way to tell if they actually did anything or not.Nothing addressed the problem and their support started saying things like "well, even if you can't see usage data, you can still use the timer feature"... Well, usage data was one of the key reasons that I purchased this product. Support also said that the hot water % data (which was fluctuating oddly) was probably because my water heater is assisted by a solar panel on the roof and Aquanta has a hard time calculating how full the tank is with such systems. This is exactly opposite from what they say on their website in the FAQ section: "Our background is in solar water heating, so we love this combo."At this point, Aquanta support started ghosting me. They stopped replying to emails and new support requests (from the app) were ignored. It's now been nearly a month since I heard anything from them. I suspect they were slow-walking support at this point in order to wait for Amazon's support/return window to close, at which point they would feel they have no obligation to provide any more support.At this point, I have a partially functioning device, with no insight into how much power is being used by my water heater.Luckily, Amazon provides better support than Aquanta. Amazon has agreed to refund me for this item given my experience.Given all the quality problems with this device and the lack of support, I highly recommend AGAINST buying this product.---------------------------The installation was mostly straightforward, for someone who has done some electrical wiring previously. If you haven't, you're probably better off hiring an electrician.On the whole, I'm fairly pleased with the device. My main concerns (2 of them) are with the quality of the design and materials that went into this product.1) The wiring terminals inside the unit are very problematic. a) They are very small, especially considering that 10 gauge wire is typically required. If you have solid 10 gauge wire, then it shouldn't be a problem. However, the wire from my breaker is 10 gauge stranded wire. Stranded wire is very difficult to fit into these tiny terminals safely (i.e., without any wire sticking out above the terminals, which could potentially result in a short). I didn't feel comfortable with the connection as it was, so I got some short lengths of 10 gauge solid wire and connected those to the terminals instead (opposite ends connected with wire nut to the stranded wire). b) The terminal requires a very small flat screwdriver. Unless you have a miniature screwdriver kit (luckily I did), it's very unlikely any of your normal screwdrivers will fit. Again, these terminals should really be larger and more robust. c) The terminals move around a lot -- so much so that I was afraid they would break off during the installation. These terminals should really be beefier, considering the gauge of wire that is typically going to be connected.2) The plastic housing is extremely cheap. After using an electric screwdriver to fasten the four screws that hold the cover in place, I found that 3 of the corners had cracked. Yes, I saw the warning in the instructions that said don't use an electric driver for the installation, but I assumed this mostly meant don't use one for the internal connections. Wrong. Why do I say the plastic is cheap? Because if a $1 plastic cover for a standard electrical box can stand up to an electric screwdriver, surely a cover/housing for a $160+ device should be able to as well...Otherwise, the app was pretty easy to set up. One concern was that the app asks you to enter your home address. There was no indication why this was needed. I assumed that it somehow uses the address in order to know what the outdoor temperature is. If this company was concerned about their customers' privacy, they would provide some explanation/rationale for why this information is needed. And, instead of requiring an address, they could simply take GPS coordinates, Zip Code, or other address surrogate.So far, the app is not providing a lot of useful information beyond the amount of electricity used on a daily basis, the estimated amount of hot water in the tank and the temperature of the water. There are several "management" options available for the controller. I chose the "Aquanta Intelligence" option, which is supposed to monitor your usage and then optimize your energy consumption. Apparently this option requires a month of data before that it is fully functional and I've only had it installed for about a week. Maybe the app will provide more useful information after the first month? I'm surprised that the app doesn't by default provide some basic information like: a) whether the heater is currently "on" or not (i.e., is it consuming electricity to heat water right now?) and b) while the daily energy consumption is useful, even more useful would be more granular data, like hourly energy use, which would give you a better idea of what times during the day your water heater is consuming the most energy (which might allow you to change your habits to optimize/minimize your energy consumption).

Great product. Turns my apartment water heater into a smart water heater.Have it on a timer that I can adjust on my smart phone.Had it for a few months now and have seen a great difference on my power bill from last year vs this year.Highly recommended to the person that wants to same money.