Enphase Enlighten Reviews

First off the sales rep/instaler said he would help us if needed, but we will more than likely get a sob story. Regarding the functionality of the solar panels we just got our meter changed and we are trying to connect EnphaseEnlighten so we can see what is going on and how we can manage it. Big shocker we can’t log into EnphaseEnlighten . And after several attempts we are told our account is inactive. And we have watched the “helpful videos” several times so we can figure this out but oh no in their perfect world this is all supposed to workout. Now after reading several reviews regarding EnphaseEnlighten I am expecting the same developer response as everyone else’s. I am not going to contact some webpage and write a email and then wait for someone across the globe to email me back. I want a phone number not you’re “sorry for the inconvenience.” Even if I got a phone number it will be someone that speaks broken English and a lot of “can I put you on hold” situations. Developer if you actually read this-figure yourself out, pitter patter let’s get at’er.

Obviously these low paid software engineers who slap together cheap apps don’t even do a usability test with the average customer to see how user friendly their app is. Someone just hands them a list of what the apps should do and they build them without any regards for the user..you know the customer!! Just horrible! To set EnphaseEnlighten up the numerous steps are ridiculous and for the average person without IT experience nearly impossible. I do have IT experience and still EnphaseEnlighten is crap and so if the hardware!! If the company’s Solar cells work the same I’ll rip them off my roof and toss them in the garage along with this equipment and app. Just one real dumb piece of FAQ…if your Solar control equipment that EnphaseEnlighten drives is located outside (seriously where did you think it would be??) you may have to run an Ethernet cable from the control box to your router!! Seriously?? And how would you suggest I do that?? Connected it and throw it across my two story house then pull it through an open window?? New homes don’t come with Ethernet connection outlets anymore…hello they use Wi-Fi!! Or do you suggest I drill a hole in the stucco and pull the wire through my wall some how? There is a garage in the way! I could go on an on about how to route an Ethernet cable but we would be here all day.

EnphaseEnlighten has not been reporting data since Jan 20. As with every solar panel owner I thought it was a hardware issue. Despite countless resets and a tech visit that resolve absolutely nothing EnphaseEnlighten keeps reporting that the gateway connection is lost yet shows in the Devices menu that it is still connected. At reset the gateway is connected but then shows errors that the micro inverters are not reporting. After countless calls to my installers whom have become uncooperative and the tech visits from Enphase themselves whom come to your house the. Leave without communicating to the home owner, I’m convinced it is EnphaseEnlighten . I can only deduce this is the case because Enphase and the solar installers have been incapable of telling you anything other than what you already know and are in no great hurry to service your system, correct the error or even talk to the home owner. All you get is the empty promise that your solar panels are working properly despite EnphaseEnlighten saying otherwise.

I bought the solar panels a couple years ago. I have contacted Enphase and they are only available to update my system remotely. As of the 18th I have consistently received notifications that my system is not working properly 15 out of 40 panels are not working properly and the problem is just closed.
Also the Green Light Solar LLC has not responded to my request for any assistance from any maintenance or repair technician to assist me with confirming the system is connected properly. I believed that this was a good company as in Texas we have lots of sun and I am trying to do my part. I have had nothing but problems with the system and the installation company and no one is able to help us. As being a wounded warrior veteran family we are on a fixed budget and we were told that the system would work and the company that installed it promised us results. So far we have been getting monthly bills and we are giving back to the grid as we are not happy with this issue.
Sutton resident

The interface is either not fully implemented or simply poorly designed. As an example: there are navigation arrows on either side of Production kWh but they don’t do anything. The production number is highlighted blue, normally indicating an actionable area, yet clicking it yields nothing. I entered a kWh per unit cost but could not change it (or couldn’t figure out how to do so after looking through all the settings) once I realized I’d entered an incorrect number. Customer service was zero help. The service assistant sent a link that wouldn’t open then sat idle for several minutes after I mentioned that the link was bad and asked that the pertinent information be copied and sent to me. Giving up on that I looked up “enlighten change kWh rate” where I was directed to their site. The first step in the process, follow a pull down arrow, was impossible as there is no such arrow in EnphaseEnlighten . The whole app is state of the art circa 2001, the company needs to bound wildly into at least 2010 app functionality, ideally 2024 but given how poor the design is they don’t know how or do not care about how their app fails.

EnphaseEnlighten mostly works. The data it shows is accurate. Everything else about EnphaseEnlighten is kind of junk. Every day or two it simply won’t refresh data and I have to kill and restart it. Moving back to yesterday will only show partial data until I pull to refresh on today. Zooming on the array view picks some arbitrary point nowhere near where I pinch so I have to pan around to see what I zoomed in on. Array view shows a higher precision of production than the energy view. I could go on, but the basic point is that EnphaseEnlighten feels like someone decided it was “finished” when many details are still not right. Last I checked, it hadn’t been updated in many months so I guess, yeah… “finished”. Too bad Enphase has made it maddeningly difficult to get my own data out of the system I own or I bet there would be many more, much better options from independent developers.

I’ve been using Enphase for the last couple of years since installating my home solar system. I found the previous V2 interface easier to get current data, and it worked equally well with both my iPhone and iPad... Sadly, the new V3.0 that came out today may look like a better or more modern interface to some with it’s larger graphics, but getting to current data just isn’t as intuitive — at least to me. There seems to be less info per screen, and little things like monthly view shows relative bars for the previous month, but no dates to get a sense of when things were going on and how weather patterns effected performance. Additionally, I use my iPad most of the time and V3.0 has lost a horizontal mode that I use 99.9% of the time, so now I have to turn my iPad into portrait mode with my keyboard on the side to use EnphaseEnlighten .

Love my inverters and solar array. Love the ability to get to real time and historical data of my system performance via EnphaseEnlighten — thank you. ...but sadly, the presentation of that information just isn’t doing it for me any more. There is work to be done.

I’m disappointed with EnphaseEnlighten. The energy independence rating is very incorrect. It only calculates the energy produced by the solar panels against the imported energy from your electric company. This is not the complete story! If you have a battery that is set to be charged only by the sun ( which is a setting that is not the default setting) it does not include that energy. And it also does not include the exported energy to the electric company that you get back for free from them. For my situation this is about a 25% miscalculation of the actual energy independence. As technical as this company seems to be, this is a gross over site to there customers. I can only hope it is not on purpose to sell more solar panels to the misinformed customers. I was also not happy with the default profile that wasn’t set to self contained which uses the least amount of energy from the grid. These were poorly explained after the installation and left up to me a 72 year old to discover on my own. The product itself is top notch but everything else is subpar.

Mike Smith

I have explored this version and I think it is terrible. The types of reports you can run have been greatly reduced. For example the report that let you look at multiple reports by year with monthly detail side by side is gone? How can look at historical data without this. Graphs are terrible now, above and below bar charts don’t let you see what is happening easily at a glance. If you are not technically inclined this may be O.K.but if your more analytically inclined it’s a downgrade! Perhaps you could add the old reports and format as a second optional skin / interface?
As for other commenters who don’t see panel level monitoring in the birds-eye view etc. It is because your installer didn’t offer it to you so you only see system level monitoring in aggregate. Some don’t want you to have it because customers call them too much about the info it provides confuses some customers. Shading, weather, time of day etc. I negotiated it in my contract and got them to pay for it as they claim it’s a few hundred dollar upgrade. I think you should have it so call your installer.

The company doesn’t uphold what there salesman offers,the salesman can put any thing to sell solar system,but not tell you the price they just say don’t pay attention to what you see,I was never told what the system cost until the financial company bills you and then you faint from the cost of the system,
I’ve tried calling the insulation supervisor several times and they never call you back.
I’ve never delt with a company like this before,it’s like when the installers are done there done with talking with you!
I was promised things that never have been done, it’s not the installers fault because they have to go by work orders it the supervisors fault cause for not doing what the salesman promised to be done,
I referred my club brother and it was supposed to have been done before Christmas and it’s still not done but like me I received a bill from the finance company and there still not done,sounds like this need to be investigated,but being a big company they get away with it and you. Get screwed after the fact,I’ll bet this will never make it to any one,and you still get screwed.

This morning I reported an alert that connection to the Envoy was interrupted. I called WindMar and they said is typical since in their all was fine.

I told them that all panels (30 of them) their was no information in them providing production and previously their was one pane in kwh and only one providing it a Wh.

In addition we were producing 6.9 and utilizing 2.2. Suddenly with the same amount of sun it was reporting from one moment to the next production of 0.5 kwh the home from 2.2 changed to the same amount of production of 0.5 whereas the steady consumption was 2.2 kwh.

At one point we decide to turn a 18,000 A/C unit and both production and consumption remained as if nothing had ever happened.

Again call WindMar and they told me these occurrences are normal.

I know is not Enphase is lacking the right technology, the installation is flawed or the folks have no clue of how it should work.

I know these report are faulty hence you cannot have a proper calculation of real output and when battery power will go into effect, or the input of the panel production is also crazy with full sun reporting from 6.6 to 1.4 to one minute to the next and sunshine everywhere.

Hope you can get something out of this but something is not right. Had the system for about three weeks only. Thank you.

EnphaseEnlighten is useful and fun as it stands. BUT it needs more features. The day/night mode could be set to go with the system. The reporting function could have not just consumption and production outputs, but import, export, net, temp, weather condition… in any combo of one, two, three… all. They could offer partnerships with… Tesla to throttle charging speed so it was all directly consumed solar. They could do like the stocks apps do and let you select two points in the graph at a time, then tell you the energy generated in the middle. They could offer explanations for why production dropped (rain, clouds, power outage). They could let you adjust your SRECTrade account in EnphaseEnlighten . They could compare your average energy use to similar homes and expand into the lifestyle app type deal.

Seriously, EnphaseEnlighten is a GREAT foundation for so much MORE. Hope the developers don’t take my 3 star as an insult. It’s an excellent product, and I hope you guys keep improving it to make it all it can be.

Ok so most of the information you need you can access in EnphaseEnlighten - it’s just not intuitive. You have to hunt things down through several selections. For example, one of my microinverters went out. There is nothing that tells me that. I have to go through several levels of menu to get to devices and then scroll through each one to make sure they are working. There is nothing on the dashboard that tells you this. If you don’t dig for it you’ll never know. As a project manager this is a huge red flag. Any trouble should be reported on the dashboard. Also, it would be nice to show consumption of solar and grid and how much you are feeding, and a graph for the hour of each. The entire interface needs to be redone. The look of it right now looks more technician friendly. This is not 2017 anymore- it’s 2023. It needs to look customer friendly.

I’ve been impressed with the information available from EnphaseEnlighten. Good ability to compare power generation (in kWh) from hour to hour, day to day, and panel to panel. I’ve only had my array live for ~1 week, so further comparisons will be available later. I do, however, find a few things wrong with EnphaseEnlighten. (1) It only reliably gives kWh, not kw. I should be able to see the instantaneous power coming from the array, and should be able to see it panel by panel. In one screen, they make a feeble attempt to show kw coming from the full array, but it’s almost certainly wrong - it usually says 0.3 kw or so for the full 20 kw array in full sunlight! (2) the array view should rotate with my phone, to enlarge the display. (3) The panel-by panel view should also show kw, not kWh.

I love how easy to use EnphaseEnlighten is. I can see all system details right on the main page. I went thorough EnphaseEnlighten and setup my system preference real easy, and access to help videos and content is great for quick tutorials.

“Live View” seems to be lagging in time delay and doesn’t show actual realtime consumption data. When I notice high consumption, I’ll go around the home to turn off items. Then check live view again however the consumption hasn’t changed. Often takes 15 mins or so which I’ll assume is the time it takes for the system to ping the server and send the info back to the gateway. Then it’s still seems a bit high even when I know I’ve shut off large appliances.

I would also like more interaction with the status page. For example, double tap production to open panels, double tap devices to see each device activity, double tap battery to open battery status. Otherwise it’s 4 clicks to; menu > system > devices > “item”

First off, I’ve learned more about electricity and grid infrastructure than I ever thought I would due to my solar project and the Enphase app “gamifying” my production and consumption.

Got consumption monitors and want to know how much your dryer or oven uses? Fire up live view and flip em on and off!

Only got production meters? No problem, see which panel generates the most power, and if you’re in a snowy area, figure out which panels are worth clearing snow from and which aren’t.

Their support is also great via chat and phone. They helped me resolve a configuration setting issue that had stumped me for days on a Sunday morning.

Some suggestions:
- I’d like to be able to see more detailed panel information in addition to production data like which microinverter ID it’s on, historical errors/messages, or historical production
- anticipated/forecasted production - if y’all know my location, system orientation/tilt/specs, could you estimate how much power I should be producing given the weather? Sometimes I need motivation to break out the foam roof rake and seeing lost potential revenue may help.
- whatever you do, never get rid of dark mode

I love the opportunity to look at a 12 month access to raw data. This allows one to actually see the shortfalls of the actual system one has initially been forced to accept. My installed “process will meet the initial stated objectives if I would set my internal home temperature at 82*F in the summer so my production would meet design expectations. Who wants to live in 82*F when it is 93*F or higher outside. Originally I was told that I was required to have a system composed of 27 roof panels. When installed they put up 21. They told me to try this for a year and see how it worked. 10 months in and it will not cover original stated parameters. I have concluded that I was shorted 6 panels because demand by “new customers” exceeded a available in country supply so they cut my installation by 20% to free up stock to “stretch” materials for additional installs.
Going to talk further to see if Solar Shine will put up additional 6 panels.

I am very impressed with the quality of the Enphase controller and microprocessor for my solar panels/batteries/grid access. There is absolutely no indication of the system changing from the solar panels powering the house/batteries powering the house/grid powering the house. Not the slightest flickering of lights or anything else when the controller switches power source. EnphaseEnlighten is pretty good for showing where the power is coming from/going to. I do wish EnphaseEnlighten would include a description (and more details) of the Storm Guard software. I can find no mention of it on EnphaseEnlighten . The only way I learned of it was through a chat with tech support, but would like more info and would appreciate if a complete description were available on EnphaseEnlighten .

I’ve had my system installed since 2011. Wasn’t really a toss up regarding line or micro inverters, I wanted the most power out of my system so micros the only real option. Aside from the D-380 inverters failing miserably, so far 45 of the 48 replaced under warranty, the system has consistently produced more power then original estimates. The best feature is the monitoring, reason it identifies a problem so it can be resolved in many cases quickly. My savings grace is a fantastic installer, because of the massive inverters failures I’d have been lost without him by my side to deal with getting replacements sent. I’m not happy about the failure at all, but giving 5 stars simply because they are standing by their warranty. And of course the system is producing more then it ever would have had I saved money from the start and installed line inverters.

Our solar array went live on Jan. 25, 2023, and I found myself constantly watching EnphaseEnlighten to see how much energy was generated even on cloudy days. Enphase Enlighten is a well-planned and informative app, and we’re extremely pleased!

Around a week ago we started seeing error msgs saying microinverters weren’t reporting to the gateway. After troubleshooting theissue ourselves, we contacted the support department of our sales company. A few days later they contacted us to say they had passed the issue up to Enphase. I’m super pleased to report that this morning I checked EnphaseEnlighten and the issue has been resolved. Additionally, I noticed a small improvement at the top of the data graphic screen that shows the 15-minute time interval of a particular bar. I’m so pleased, as it was really difficult trying to guage exactly what time a particular amount of energy was being reported.

The only other thing I’ve noticed that could be worked on is that in the System Menu, there appears to be a display limit of 30 Microinverters, and we have nearly double that number. I consider that to be fairly low priority though, as the primary screens truly deliver the important data.