The Submeter Buyer Guide Spreadsheet

Based on expert, community sourced data. Submit your email address to get a time-saving view of your submetering options.

A new way to buy submetering hardware and software

If you're evaluating energy submeter products in the next 3-6 months, you're probably strapped for time to do the upcoming research, demos and reference calls. You’re busy, and you have other things you’d rather be doing. Plus, shouldn’t somebody have made a website for that already?

Inspired by advice.io and StackShare, a website that lets companies share what their technology stack is, we think we’re creating a better process to help you evaluate energy monitoring solutions, where we help you answer the key questions:

  • What are your choices?
  • Will those choices meet your needs?
  • What are best practices and risk considerations?
  • Does it fit my budget?

Why organize it in a spreadsheet?

  • It lets you see all your options in one place and provides the data filtering tools out of box.
  • You don’t have to have dozens of tabs open or go to a bunch of websites to get the information.
  • It’s a common and versatile format for sharing your work internally with your team for feedback.

This is cool, but why is it free

We ask for your email to share the materials and to get your feedback. And if you like, we can stay in touch to keep you updated when the materials change.

The feedback is what builds the value of this service and that’s why we run it for free.

But we don’t share your information with vendors and you won’t hear from us trying to sell you anything either.

Imagine if restaurants were given your contact information when you were just looking up where to eat on Yelp or Zagat. That’d be annoying!

We think when folks will reach out to solution providers if and when they’re ready and they find the one for them.

Who’s behind the spreadsheet?

We’re a private company based at the NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley. We started this company with the mission of bending the CO2 curve. We think we make great products. We also know we’re not always the right fit for every situation. We value transparency in our work and think that’s important for building trust.

We’ve seen people doing this same work over and over again.

We’d like to solve that problem. Our expectation is that we’re helping make the market for energy monitoring solutions more efficient connect suppliers and buyers and that’s good for buyers, us, the industry, and the mission — everyone wins.

Can’t you tell me which tech I should choose?

Sorry! But we’re afraid that’s not possible.

The same energy monitoring solution doesn’t work for every case. Finding the right submeter and service provider it’s about finding the solution that meets your unique budget, timing, and goals.

Realistically speaking, most of these solutions will come with some tradeoffs. But at least, armed with this information, you’ll avoid choosing a solution you’ll regret.

Who is this spreadsheet made for?

Facilities managment, HVAC/R technicians, Energy analysts or other in-house and external energy-focused organizations servicing commercial and industrial buildings.

Other folks who might find the information useful include ecosystem partners (researchers, system integrators, OEMs, panel builders, etc.) at the union of Industrial IoT, Commercial Real Estate technology, building automation, renewable generation and storage technologies and researchers who monitor the landscape of energy sensor technologies and services

What features are analyzed?

We’re open to feedback! To start, we’re looking at the basic dimensions we see most commonly used by sophisticated buyers and will be adding more as we hear from you. Ultimately we're hoping to start with the data that’s the hardest to gather:

  • pricing and cost
  • hardware specifications
  • software capabilities
  • configurability
  • IT, IOT, and data platform capabilities
  • installation and setup

Are there limitations to your method?

Our main limitation is expanding coverage with expert users. To get around this we welcome partners interested in helping build this service.

How can I be sure this is unbiased?

We’ll do our best by making sure we’re as transparent as possible about our intentions and changes. That means we’ll be making any change history available.