Best home energy monitors in 2026: Which one is right for you?

The cost of electricity is rising across the country, which means that reducing your energy consumption now can save you more money than ever. If you're looking to reduce your electric bill as prices increase, it's worth considering a home energy monitor.

Home energy monitors let you see how much energy individual appliances use in your home, providing valuable insight into when and where they could be wasting electricity. Installing an energy monitor can help you set and achieve both your clean energy and financial goals, because it offers personalized recommendations to optimize when and how your appliances use power.

“Overall, the reasons to install an energy monitor can go far beyond behavior change, though it can certainly help with that. It gives insight into your home in a way that isn’t available any other way,” Joel Rosenberg, senior program manager for special projects at the advocacy nonprofit Rewiring America, told EnergySage.

Most models sell for $300 or less, which makes a home energy monitor a decent investment for any aspiring energy aficionado, if only for the opportunity to better understand your household energy usage and how to pare it down.

If you've ever looked closely at your electric bill, you know it doesn't provide much information. Your bill will tell you how much electricity you've used and how much it costs—unfortunately, that's about it.

Let's say you want to cut your energy use to save money or reduce your carbon footprint. You'll have to cut down on your electricity consumption, but how do you know which devices in your home are the heaviest users and when they cost the most money to run? Energy monitors help by eliminating this guessing game. 

Energy monitors are a gateway to the inner energy workings of your home. They connect to your electricity meter to show how much energy your home uses and provide information on how to make your home more energy efficient. Depending on the monitor you choose, you may track your consumption at the appliance, circuit, or whole home level—all remotely from your mobile device. Your monitoring app will often provide additional insights, from how to increase your energy efficiency to when to use the most electricity to maximize your savings, based on the cost of electricity at different times of day.

How do energy monitors work?

Typically, energy monitors sit next to your electrical panel (aka breaker box). If you have a smart panel, like Span, it’ll have built-in monitoring capability, delivering energy monitoring and insights at the circuit level. However, if you have an add-on energy monitor, it probably comes with sensors. These sensors may clamp onto your service mains—the wires between your electric meter and your electrical panel—and "read" your home's electrical current. They can then provide an overview of how much electricity your home uses. More advanced systems may use machine learning to recognize the "electricity signatures" associated with your home's appliances to provide device-level monitoring. 

Instead of connecting to service mains, some sensors connect directly to individual circuits, providing circuit-level monitoring. Either way, your energy monitor will deliver its findings to your smartphone or computer as actionable insights. 

Do home energy monitors actually save households money?

Some studies have shown that home energy monitor users adjust their behavior to some extent. Emporia advertises that its users reduce their monthly electric bills by about 10%. 

Not only do energy monitors get people to recognize and change their consumption habits, but they can also help users identify appliances that are using more energy than they should—alerting them to the need for a repair or replacement. And they can help users recognize and take action against so-called energy vampires or phantom loads—those always-on, hardly noticeable uses of electricity from devices like televisions, which draw some power even when they’re off, which adds up over time.

As new models of energy monitors increasingly integrate with smart appliances and allow users to automate their energy usage, the better they become at helping reduce household energy use overall—and the more savings you as a homeowner will ultimately see.

Emporia Vue 3 Energy Monitor

Emporia’s Vue monitor is a budget-friendly option that seems to be well-loved by its users. While the base model monitors your home’s main power breaker, offering only a general overview of your home’s energy use, you can add sensors that clamp onto individual circuits in your electrical panel for a much more detailed look. Users can label these circuits—“kitchen,” “dryer,” “EV charger,” or “heat pump, for example—to track energy use by area or appliance. 

You can get even more granular data for devices plugged into Emporia smart plugs. Vue integrates smoothly with other Emporia products, including its smart EV charger, which can be paired with the monitor to optimize charging—like syncing with time-of-use rates or drawing from excess solar power. Emporia’s app offers a wide range of charts, insights, and alerts for unusual energy use. 

Vue’s basic monitor is about $100, while kits with eight and 16 sensors cost about $150 and $200, respectively.

Siemens Inhab Energy Monitor

Siemens’ Inhab Smart Home Energy Monitor gives homeowners a clear view of how much electricity their home is using in real time. The system tracks overall household consumption and can also be configured to monitor individual circuits for a more detailed breakdown of energy use. 

Pricing typically falls in the mid-$200 range, depending on configuration and retailer. It’s a good middle-ground option for homeowners who want more structure and brand backing than ultra-budget monitors offer, but don’t necessarily need a premium ecosystem.

Schneider Electric Home Energy Monitor

Formerly known as the Wiser energy monitor, Schneider’s monitor installs in your home’s electrical panel to track whole-home electricity consumption. It operates through Schneider’s Wiser app to provide real-time energy usage, notify you when devices turn on or off, help you track energy savings, allow you to set energy goals, and give recommended actions to reduce waste and save money. Solar-ready configurations allow homeowners to track production alongside consumption and view net usage.

Schneider’s monitor is priced higher than competitors like Emporia and Siemens at about $375 to $550. It may appeal most to homeowners who already use Schneider electrical equipment and prefer brand continuity within their electrical system.

For most homeowners, purchasing an energy monitor is a great decision—but your upfront costs and long-term savings will largely depend on your chosen product. Not all energy monitors are created equal, so we'll walk you through the factors to consider to determine the best fit for your needs.  

Real-time cost tracking

Some, but not all, home energy monitors let you track your energy costs in real time. Real-time cost tracking lets you watch as your electricity consumption and costs rise or fall. You'll also be able to see and understand the effects of turning devices on and off, such as keeping your TV on in the background. This feature can be essential for maximizing cost savings. 

Mobile apps and notifications

Make sure that any energy monitor you choose includes a mobile app. This app should send you notifications about which appliances are running, tips for further savings, and warnings about abnormal appliance behavior, which could help you proactively replace a malfunctioning appliance. If you want to receive notifications about a specific issue with your electricity use, confirm that your chosen product has that functionality. 

Solar-ready monitor options

One of the best times to purchase an energy monitor is if you have already installed, or plan to install, solar. If you fall into one of these categories, you'll want to ensure that the monitor you choose is solar-ready, meaning it can monitor your solar electricity production. Energy monitors with this option allow you to see how much energy your solar panels generate, when they generate it, and how you use it.

Appliance recognition

Some energy monitors use built-in artificial intelligence to learn specific device signatures of your appliances. Each appliance has a unique way of using electricity. Over time, these energy monitors will determine which appliances are running based on how they use your electricity. This "machine learning" period can take weeks to months, which can be frustrating if you want to start monitoring at the appliance level immediately. Ultimately, an energy monitor equipped with appliance recognition will quickly assess the detected appliances and, via your monitoring app, report specific information and actions you can take for those appliances. 

It's important to remember that only some monitors have this feature, and the technology doesn't always work perfectly for those that do. It's usually easy for the monitor to detect differences between a TV and a refrigerator, but devices that use electricity similarly (think heating devices, like a toaster and a curling iron) may be more challenging. 

Installation

Unless you're familiar with your electrical panel, we recommend consulting an electrician for your energy monitor installation. Many home energy monitors market themselves as do-it-yourself, but any project that involves attaching a device to your electrical panel will pose shock hazards. Bringing an electrician to your house for installation will increase the total cost of the equipment, but once installed, the devices can yield significant savings and confidence in your system.

Energy monitors are great devices for understanding your electricity usage, but they're most valuable when you take action based on the information they provide. If you don't think having these insights will change your behavior, an energy monitor might not be the right choice for you. 

“My honest opinion is that it’s a nice-to-have. I don’t think it’s essential,” Meg Howard, a program director for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, told EnergySage. “If you’re interested, it can help you understand your energy use and make smart decisions, but it’s certainly not something you need to have an electrified home.”

However, Howard said energy monitors can be particularly attractive if you live in an area with time-of-use (TOU) rates, meaning you pay more for electricity at certain times of the day when demand is higher. Some monitoring apps will even allow you to enter the TOU rates in your area, so they can suggest when to cut down your energy consumption accordingly. For example, it may cost less for you to do laundry or run your dishwasher during the day than at night: Your energy monitor can help you figure out the best time (or times) to run different appliances to streamline your energy consumption and maximize your savings. 

You may also consider purchasing an energy monitor if you have a solar or solar-plus-storage system. Some energy monitors will come with additional current sensors that clamp onto your solar wires, allowing you to track how much energy your solar panels generate and how much electricity you consume. With this information, you can increase your electricity usage during the day to pull less power from the grid—or your storage system—at night.