Enphase gives preview of new Enlighten website

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RegGuheert

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Messages
6,419
Location
Northern VA
Hi all,

I just got this email from Enphase announcing their updated Enlighten monitoring website. It tells how to access it and gives a link to pages explaining the new features:
Enphase email about new Enlighten website said:
Experience a new Enlighten!

Dear Enlighten User,

We've been working hard to bring you a new version of Enlighten and we're excited for you to try it out.

To experience the new Enlighten, look for a notification at the top of your browser the next time you log in. Click the "Try it now" link to test-drive Enlighten's new features and capabilities.

Here's a bit of what to expect:

A re-designed and intuitive interface
Built-in kiosk mode, easily customized with photos and text
Optimized for multiple devices – desktop, mobile, iPad

Click here for a complete review of what's new and to learn more.

Thank you,
The Enlighten Team at Enphase Energy
(I changed the link to one that goes directly to the feature page.)

One of the new features is full access from all devices, which I believe means they have moved from Adobe Flash to HTML5. That's a good thing, but I had trouble getting into the new site from my iPad to try it out. Ultimately, I think you can get there by using this link and replacing the XXXXX with your array number:

https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/systems/XXXXX/arrays" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

At first blush I would say it is not quite as visually appealing as the old site, but it is much more functional! I really like having full access from the iPad.

Thoughts?
 
I do like the new look and that it got rid of Flash. I hope this means that now we'll see more updates to the site. A few things that bother me a bit though. When you first load it the panels are zoomed all the way out so you can't read the numbers/etc. It doesn't seem to provide a current generation number for the entire system? The playback feature seems like it's way to fast compared to the old site.
 
Did they take away the animation feature? Where you can see the rise and fall of your daily production?
 
mdh said:
Did they take away the animation feature? Where you can see the rise and fall of your daily production?

It's still there, at the top left click Power and it'll play through today's, but it plays WAY too fast for me.
 
One thing I like about the new website is that you can upload up to four pictures of your installation. I often find that I am looking at others' array diagrams and trying to imagine what it might look like. For instance, I have a link for an array nearby here that I'm dying to get a glimpse of: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/LkCY5698" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, if you have one of these systems, please go ahead and upload a couple of pictures so that we can all spy on your installations from afar! ;)

BTW, they still are having some issues showing the pictures, but I assume they will have this fixed by the time they launch.
 
FWIW, that looks to me like a commercial install (although it's tagged residential, so perhaps an apartment building) with a row of panels acting as cover for their parking spots...
 
I expected this new site to become the default for both the secure site (for owners) and for the public site for others to view, but it's still only used for the secure site. Is this how things will be permanently, or is the new HTML5 site still in beta testing?
 
RegGuheert said:
I expected this new site to become the default for both the secure site (for owners) and for the public site for others to view, but it's still only used for the secure site. Is this how things will be permanently, or is the new HTML5 site still in beta testing?
Well, the public site now has the new format available. It is COMPLETELY different than the secure site. There are some interesting plots on there, such as seeing every day's production for an entire year in a single plot, but I'm not sold on it. I'd rather see the plot of production through the day. I don't find that on the public site anymore.

Anyway, you can now see pictures of the arrays if the owner uploads them. I've always wondered what some of these arrays look like. Here's the new link to our system, complete with pictures:

https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/ZgcD12032" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Alright, everyone, let's see some pictures of your arrays!
 
The new HTML5 Enlighten website has been the exclusive option for Enphase customers for over a year now.

I have to say that as time goes on, it seems like Enphase is either introducing more bugs, eliminating capabilities or both. It's a bit frustrating.

Here are some things that have been lost:

- September 3, 2013: When they turned off the old site, it was no longer possible to monitor per-inverter performance of others' systems. In other words, I lost the ability to track global and individual MTBF of the Enphase inverters.
- Feedback tab on the right side of the screen is a very visible feature of the new website. It even used to accept feedback. But now it just sits there wasting real estate. Frankly, they never fixed any of the issues I reported using that tab in any case.
- There is no longer a per-module thermometer code (with different colors) that shows energy produced over the selected period. If you want to find failures, you need to carefully READ each and every energy number and compare them. IMO, this is a major step backwards in their UI. So, not only can I not see others' failed modules, it is also more difficult to see my own. It seems they are trying to hide them. (BTW, you can still see currently-failed modules in a different color in the thermometer plot of powers.)
- There is no correct Y-axis label on graphs when you plot anything other than power or energy. For everything else (AC Voltage, AC frequency, DC Current, DC Voltage or Temperature), you have to guess the scale of the graph by hovering over curves and looking at the values for individual points.

I'm starting to wonder how many Enphase owners currently have failed modules that they do not know about because the failures are not particularly visible on the Enlighten website. I'm willing to bet it is not a trivial percentage of M190 owners.

All that said, I do like that the new site works with my iPad and that it allows much more information about the array to be uploaded, including pictures.

I'll keep complaining about what I don't like, but it does seem that Enphase really only responds to customers when they report failures. They seem to take their cues for their website right or wrong from somewhere else.
 
RegGuheert said:
I'm starting to wonder how many Enphase owners currently have failed modules that they do not know about because the failures are not particularly visible on the Enlighten website. I'm willing to bet it is not a trivial percentage of M190 owners.
On the main, graphical, display of your panel layout, wouldn't you see that failed modules as black panels because they're not producing anything?
 
I just noticed another change in the past few weeks. I look at events history to see what fault activity is being reported and now that interface has changed. The events page now has "resolved" in place of history and a hard to see 'Filter' button (it looks like magnifying glass) that has to be pressed to update the page. It used to be when one selected history the page automatically updated with the history.
 
GeekEV said:
RegGuheert said:
I'm starting to wonder how many Enphase owners currently have failed modules that they do not know about because the failures are not particularly visible on the Enlighten website. I'm willing to bet it is not a trivial percentage of M190 owners.
On the main, graphical, display of your panel layout, wouldn't you see that failed modules as black panels because they're not producing anything?
Only if you switch the display from an "Energy" plot to a "Power" plot. If you have an intermittent problem, then you have to look at the right TIME when the power was low to see the problem whereas the energy plot makes such problems easier to find.
Nekota said:
I just noticed another change in the past few weeks. I look at events history to see what fault activity is being reported and now that interface has changed. The events page now has "resolved" in place of history and a hard to see 'Filter' button (it looks like magnifying glass) that has to be pressed to update the page. It used to be when one selected history the page automatically updated with the history.
Thanks for that! I have always looked at events directly on the Envoy itself, which seems to limit them to 500. It's nice to be able to see a longer history.
 
RegGuheert said:
- There is no longer a per-module thermometer code (with different colors) that shows energy produced over the selected period. If you want to find failures, you need to carefully READ each and every energy number and compare them. IMO, this is a major step backwards in their UI. So, not only can I not see others' failed modules, it is also more difficult to see my own. It seems they are trying to hide them. (BTW, you can still see currently-failed modules in a different color in the thermometer plot of powers.)
Enphase responded a couple of days ago on this issue by saying it was a known problem and they are working on it. Looking at it today they have fixed the problem. That was pretty quick!

They also have finally responded to an old issue I had with my data and elevated it to engineering. Hopefully they will take care of this issue also.
 
I suggested NUMEROUS times that they incorporate a calculated "efficiency" column in the listing of microinverters. This could simply reveal an average value (percentage) of output power to input power in watts, updated daily, hourly or upon command. This is really all ENLIGHTEN MANAGER needs for monitoring purposes to "flag" deficiencies of individual inverters. As far as I'm concerned, the means to monitor the measured average conversion efficiency of a micro inverter (typically spec'd 95% or greater) is paramount to the "health" of same. When an inverter falls well below this spec (say 85% or less) and remains that way over time, the end user should receive an "alert" of any such inverters failing to perform to spec. Of course, Enlighten Manager users can do this for themselves, but it is a rather tedious and time consuming data retrieval process to do all the calculations for each inverter especially in a large array, when the Enlighten software could easily automate and report the results for the system owner or Installer or leasing company. Of course, this will never happen because such a "feature" would expose Enphase to countless customer inquiries, potentially resulting in warranty claims (especially with respect to M190s).
 
RegGuheert said:
- Feedback tab on the right side of the screen is a very visible feature of the new website. It even used to accept feedback. But now it just sits there wasting real estate. Frankly, they never fixed any of the issues I reported using that tab in any case.
Enphase replied that it works for them and suggested that I clear my cache, try other browsers and other computers, and if that doesn't work, to then to contact the manufacturer of the computer if that doesn't work. :roll:

Anyway, none of that worked, but I did find what was causing the problem: I have a widget blocker called "Ghostery" on all of the PC browsers. That was blocking the feedback tab (through feedbackify.com) from launching.
 
dsinned said:
I suggested NUMEROUS times that they incorporate a calculated "efficiency" column in the listing of microinverters. This could simply reveal an average value (percentage) of output power to input power in watts, updated daily, hourly or upon command. This is really all ENLIGHTEN MANAGER needs for monitoring purposes to "flag" deficiencies of individual inverters. As far as I'm concerned, the means to monitor the measured average conversion efficiency of a micro inverter (typically spec'd 95% or greater) is paramount to the "health" of same. When an inverter falls well below this spec (say 85% or less) and remains that way over time, the end user should receive an "alert" of any such inverters failing to perform to spec. Of course, Enlighten Manager users can do this for themselves, but it is a rather tedious and time consuming data retrieval process to do all the calculations for each inverter especially in a large array, when the Enlighten software could easily automate and report the results for the system owner or Installer or leasing company. Of course, this will never happen because such a "feature" would expose Enphase to countless customer inquiries, potentially resulting in warranty claims (especially with respect to M190s).

There is a feature in Enphase where you can download the last 7 days of data {Date/Time, AC Voltage(V), AC Frequency (Hz), DC Voltage (V), DC Current (A), Temperature (?C), Power Produced (W)} which you are probably familiar with but it has to be done panel by panel and several steps to get that data to download. The data isn't always sampled at same time so the AC power to DC power can be different when the power level is changing. My calculations using those numbers are okay when the power level is changing slowly from 5 minute intervals. A graphical view can also be created by clicking on the panel you want to graph while in power mode.
 
I see a slight change to the public websites today: When you load the page, you now get a splash screen which reads "Loading (e) MyEnlighten" with a progress bar. Other than that the sites look the same to me.

I seem to recall that there is some change to their business model which means that new customers now only get the "MyEnlighten" site and have to pay extra for the detailed site. Is that correct? (At the time, I really didn't know what "MyEnlighten" was, so what I read did not have meaning to me.)

They seem to be having problems with data on some sites today, as well.
 
Enphase made another change to the public Enlighten websites this week: They removed the lifetime energy production for the site.

What are they thinking? :?:

As it stands now, if I send someone to my public website to see the production of my system, they see neither the annual product nor the total production. The biggest roll-up of data is for a single month.

Personally, I think that makes it much harder for most people to get an idea of how much energy these systems produce. I think it would be much more "enlightening" for people to see 66.4 MWh and calculate that at the current rate of $0.12/kWh, that equates to $8000 of electricity production in less than five years' time!
 
RegGuheert said:
Enphase made another change to the public Enlighten websites this week: They removed the lifetime energy production for the site.

What are they thinking? :?:
The lifetime energy production information is back. Musta been a bug.
 
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