Loop Energy Saver Gas & Electricity Monitors with Built in Tariff Tracker

Will not repeat instructions which are posted by others and readily available on YouTube. Early doors this is a great product which I am surprised is not (yet!) the must-have of the year. Having recently done sensible things with energy; changed energy supplier/deal and replaced all bulbs with LEDs, checked draughts and sealed some doorways, and re-set all timings (esp. wasted heating on water) we thought we'd find a way of discovering other usage issues and to keep track on spending. Having reviewed all the market we came across this product quite quickly, read all the reviews, and thought it seemed a 'no brainer'. Price overwhelmingly favoured purchase of both electric and gas monitors so the combo on Amazon seemed sensible for the combo price at this time.ANOTHER UPDATE 07/11/17Nearly two years in this still does the bizz. Continues to save me money in monitoring active uses (I don't fiddle so much but as stated my bills have plummeted from the clues it gave us) and reaffirmed my tariff was the best around for me just before I renewed. (Co-op for me). When I had various house rewires, boiler upgrade and kitchen/bathroom changes necessitating power outages, it duly caught up (except once when I forgot to re-set for ages). The ONLY issue I have had is that owing to the stupid position of my gas meter I keep knocking the attachment off but this is not Loop's fault. One of the best things ever purchased............................................................................................Never failed, always faithful and gas meter matches exactly my own. The set up was staggeringly smooth and quick but I did read all the instructions a few times first - including the excellent YouTube vids posted by Loop. The manufacturers really have worked extremely hard to make it as simple as possible given the need to ensure monitoring via counter view (gas) and cable clamp (elec.) in conjunction with your broadband routerWorked first time in set up and was operating both and monitoring consumption within the hour. Trust me, I worked methodically, slowly and re-checked all instructions as I went. You have to do electricity first and advise you have a play with that before adding gas. All inside an hour.A few days in we already have comparative graphs and live monitoring unlocked for both our expenditure, kW, etc., by gas/elec./both and others. We know we have spent 2.49 pounds (incl. notional standing charges pro rata) per day so far (late December both 'indoors').We re set all timings (esp. wasted heating on water).Nothing following setup detracts from expectations. Better than imagined and we have already made changes to our habits by monitoring differences with on/off of individual items (you can see easily and immediately the net effect of - for example - Xmas lights, lights, TV, cooker, etc etc, etc). This tinkering took up most of a day such was the fun. So, this is the icing on the cake of a strategy of cost reduction and we anticipate will pay for itself in a few months or even weeks.Once my year is up with new energy supplier I will know where to go via this product without thinking and will have fun with the graphs and instant readings. BTW the gas meter reading is still a spot on match which is reassuring so we know the reader works properly.Positives:Delivered very quickEasy and quickly set up - no toolsGreat graphs and other instant readingsMuch more on the interface - tips, excellent FAQSThis WILL pay for itself and quicklyNegatives: THESE ARE MINOR AND DO NOT BOTHER MENot exporting/saving graphs, stats. I guess one day that may help stattos among you. Meanwhile the charts and readings are pretty darn good anyway.No windows phone app. Not much has this - even expensive smart security monitoring systems don't and Android/Apple dominate in any case. The full monitoring needs pc/laptop/tablet anyway.Not allow for 'feed in' systems like those of you with solar. However, simple subtraction would resolve. Anyway Loop folk working on this.One other comment. Suppliers are offering smart meters. These are designed to reduce costs of the suppliers (meter men) and to prepare us for time of day pricing in a few years. Meanwhile, and in any case, buy this product which will still work for you not for them since it is designed for you. Smart meters I have seen will not do all this can. I guess in a few years you'd use both.We cannot comment on the customer support but judging by others' posts and responses by the company this looks to be excellent too. Buy with confidence, provided you wish to save money, have internet and can follow very simple instructions.UPDATEThrough using the regular gas consumption readings together with the live electricity readings on screen we discovered that the thermostat was not working properly and the central heating timer settings were jumbled on the central heating controls. Now they have all been re-set so we will not waste so much as what we believe is happening is actually happening! This alone was worth the money just to 'tidy up' our home heating controls which would had gone unnoticed on mild days. Also we have been able to re-balance/set room thermostats much better.One further tip for those with a thermostat in the hallway - keep it away from lights - they distort - obvious with incandescents, but given we have LEDs (still some heat) we would not have noticed had we not been so sharply aware of heating performance each 15 minutes.2nd UPDATEWell, a few weeks in I can now download csv sheets with daily usage of both gas and electricity separately (saveable to excel of course). Also a weekly viewable graph has now appeared. So anorak me up.

Great hardware let down by website designed pre year 2000 and mobile app that is only a wrapper for the website (so not a REAL app)Plus it is NOT compatible with Gas meters with only 2 digits. (16 m3 meter - installed in many NEW houses these days)This is great for all old builds - you get reasonable ok data - and for the price it is worth it. But the website and software is so outdated it is painful to use. No integration with other systems (like IFTTT) and system is not smart at all.I feel I get yelled at when I have a high consumption - despite anyone reading an outside temperature can SEE that it is NORMAL to use more gas when it is 5 deg outside than when it is 15.So they both need some "psychology skills" in their communication - think OUT of the box vs this "isolated engineer in a basement" kind of approach to things they have now (black / white, plus / minus). I know they are probably struggling to make a profit - but they would sell a lot more if the user interface was nice and elegant. And you don't feel "blame" when you use more or less - but helpful advice and not "black stars" in your daily summary log.But as I said - hardware is great even exceptional - and easy to install - guides are reasonable - but the user interface to the rest is a complete let-down.

The product works well as long as it works well, as soon as something goes wrong there is little information available as to what the issue is and poor troubleshooting steps available (Reset the device).On the whole the product has worked reasonably well although it does seem to stop updating occasionally for a few days then catches up for seemingly no reason at all.However when viewing your data online you get very basic views with little real information on them. I was hoping to be able to see my overall daytime usage profile and things like that but none of this is available to view online. No worries I thought, I'll download the data and work it out myself, no luck. You can only download hourly data one day at a time and painstakingly go through each day one at a time.So I gave up on trying to get this information myself and contacted support requesting the hourly electricity data on my account. I got a lovely response stating they could provide that data at a charge of £96!! that's extortionate and has really put me off the service being offered.

Very impressed by Loop, very easy to setup, well thought out and implemented.The sensors for the Gas and Electric meters have a 15yr battery in them, meaning they will run until Smart Metering is fully deployed in the UK.The network device that connects to your Internet Router and has a Cat5 through port built in which means it effectively doesn't take up any of the limited Cat5 ports on your router, if you have no ports free, unplug one device and plug into Loop and plug Loop into the now free space.The software is all web based, so the Loop iOS app effectively just logs you into the website. The downside is that the app is not as pretty as a well written iOS app, but the upside is that you can access your meter readings anywhere in the world where you have Internet. Also because all the data is in the cloud Loop shows how your energy usage compares against other similar Loop users.What I really love, and your energy supplier will hate is that after 30 days of usage Loop starts advising you on how much will save by changing to another supplier. You can change using USwitch which is built into the Loop App.