In the summer of 2020, Span introduced smart electrical panel for switching to clean energy sources and for home energy monitoring. Now the company has secured an extra $20 million in funding and plans on leveraging the investment to expand into a partnership with Amazon Alexa.
Span, a San Francisco based company, created its smart electrical panel to enable consumers to monitor and control the energy within the home, providing an easier upgrade path to clean energy technologies, like solar panels and electric car batteries.
According to Arch Rao, founder and CEO of Span, who previously led the Tesla Energy product team, “The upcoming decade will be about home electrification and accelerating the adoption of clean energy. It’s great to add investors that are aligned with our long-term vision and will help Span bring innovation to the energy and home service markets.”
Span considers Amazon Alexa voice control as an important step in making consumers aware of their personal energy use and making the control of every aspect of their home more accessible and convenient.
Span’s Alexa Voice Control Integration
New funding will help Span become more well-known and more accessible to consumers. Span’s integration with Alexa voice control creates easier pathways to interact with their evolving smart homes.
Customers can use Alexa to turn the device on and off as well as any circuit or appliance in the home. With Alexa linked in, customers can say, “Alexa, ask Span what is consuming the most power right now.”
The Smart Panel
Span’s smart electrical panel aims to simplify the switch to clean energy and to create a powerful, precise, and intuitive interface with the home. The real time controls and onboard intelligence make home energy monitoring easier via the Span Home App.
Once placed in the home, the smart panel can be customized to fit each household’s needs.
The panel still looks like a common electrical panel. If preferred, customers can still use the panel without the app. The app is primarily used for monitoring but is capable of doing everything the physical box can.
The Span Home App will gather information from customers’ energy usage over time and translate it into insights to make it easier to understand. For example, the app may say, “85 percent of your energy came from the sun today!” or “the air conditioner used 46 percent of your energy today!”
The smart panel also comes with a home battery to protect the home from power outages. The app allows the user to track how much backup power they have accumulated and, if they’re using it, how much they have left.
The battery uses the backup power as efficiently as possible, reserving it forwhat is most needed by the family, like the refrigerator and bathrooms. Users can prioritize what gets power and change it at any time.
