Vent: I thought those new smart breakers were just a gimmick until one in a client's house in Austin flagged a failing appliance motor before it caught fire.

It sent an alert to my phone about a weird power draw pattern, and when I got there the next day, the motor windings were already starting to short out, so what other new tech have you guys actually found useful on a job?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_holly3mo ago

Felt the same way about smart leak detectors. Wrote them off as overpriced gadgets until I installed a few in a crawl space for a peace-of-mind client. Got a push notification about a slow drip from a pipe joint I never would have found in time. That one alert saved them from a huge mold problem down the road.

the_abby3mo ago

Guess we're all just paying for fancy warning lights now. My tools just break without sending a text first, which feels rude. Technology is getting better at the "oh crap" part of the job before we even get there.

anthonykim1mo ago

Have you ever had one of those calls where a little warning saved someone a ton of money? I've seen smart breakers catch an AC unit that was drawing too much power because of a bad capacitor. The homeowner was shocked when I showed them the data from the app. It's not just about the alerts either; some of these things let you monitor the load in real time, which helps you trace a circuit without flipping breakers all day. That alone is worth the setup time for troubleshooting tricky outlets.

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