Leviton Thermal Magnetic vs Hydraulic Magnetic Circuit Breakers

Status
Not open for further replies.
VirutalElectrician said:
That's true in the commercial world. In residential, the software/cloud is usually free. They use it as an incentive to sell the physical product.


There's really no other feasible way for this to work. Trying to get Joe Homeowner to setup port forwarding on their router is a non-starter. Then if someone breaks into that little appliance they sold you, now you have a public relations nightmare. Sending data to the cloud is the most customer friendly way to get this done.

Cloud services are not free, but they are extremly cheap. You can process and store a tremendous amout of data on a cloud system for not much money.

The shell game is, they need to keep selling product to support it. If the product fails in the market place, then all those who bought in get screwed when the shell game falls apart and the cloud service is switched off.



There is electronic trip on the Leviton breakers. I can push a button in the app, and it'll trip the breaker. There's just no electronic reset, which is disallowed by UL. That's why SPAN does it with relays after the breaker.

If you are so inclined, you could look into the Shelly's pro grade WiFi relays. They are DIN mountable WIFI relays with power monitoring. You would of course have to run your circuits into a home-rolled system after the panel, but the Shelley's relays have an open API that work with Home Assitant, so you'd be in control of everything, no cloud required.

Professional Series

www.shelly.cloud www.shelly.cloud
Click to expand...
Totally agree with your comments.

One thing that a lot of of cloud services run off of is the data too. If that data has any value that can help keep things going can help fund things too.

Free email services have been around for a hell of long time now.

Doing your own server etc. is a non starter. Too much work. And I work on that stuff for a living. And even having the hooks is not worth the trouble. Those days are long gone.

Note that the Leviton App for the Panel is one and the same with the App to control Smart Devices Leviton sells. I’m sure a lot is shared between smart devices and smart panels. So the added overhead to support the panel is not that large.

Smart Switches better work for at least 10 years, if not 20, or they won’t be in that business. And I think it’s a big business that’s growing.

Probably have a $1,000 in smart switches ~$50 each.
 
VirutalElectrician said:
I watched some YT videos on SPAN last night.

WOW.

Tremendous amout of marketing propaganda there. Almost half the videos where SPAN sponsered. Some of the videos even started out with "I originally made a video about SPAN, but SPAN wasn't happy with it, so they came out onsite to help me re-do the video..."

Their marketing machine is in high gear that's for sure. Tremendous amout of videos raving about the app and how cool it is.

I couldn't find a single Tear Down video of how the panel actually does what it does. There's a simple parts break down picture.

It looks like they have a relay and circuit board buried behind the circuit breaker bus. I'm guessing if you blow something on this board, you'd have to rip out all your breakers, disconnect all the wires in the panel just to access this board and replace it. How expensive is that going to be for a home owner ? How many days to rush ship me a new controller board? How many days to schedule an electrician to come on site and replace?
It looks like they've already gone through a couple generational design changes, and made the new panels smaller. Are the new controllers compatible with the old ones? How much longer will original installers be able to get the older control boards should their's blow?

Are the relays normally closed, so that if the controller board fails, the circuilt will at least continue to function?

Lots of what-ifs all their sponsered glory videos happily ignore.

One thing is for sure, Siemens and Square D deserve to be slapped for completely missing the boat on this stuff. But that's typical for old ancient companies with huge profit margins. It's difficult for them to see the future. But this is still new territory, there's still time for them to catch up. Original invovators like SPAN rarely end up being the market leaders in the long run.
Click to expand...

This SPAN panel is made for someone w/ solar & battery storage, and also more beneficial if you're charging EV's as well. The designers came from the Tesla Powerwall team. If you don't have what I listed above, its not something you need. But I can see the benefit in having a system like this to help manage power/batteries.

As for marketing... .I mean they sunk several million dollars into this, I'd be marketing like crazy as well.

The wheels could fall off my truck while I'm driving down the highway tomorrow, but Ford doesn't make a video about that scenario either. I'm not buying either the Leviton or SPAN products but I'm glad to see some innovation.
 
brantmacga said:
This SPAN panel is made for someone w/ solar & battery storage, and also more beneficial if you're charging EV's as well. The designers came from the Tesla Powerwall team. If you don't have what I listed above, its not something you need. But I can see the benefit in having a system like this to help manage power/batteries.

As for marketing... .I mean they sunk several million dollars into this, I'd be marketing like crazy as well.

The wheels could fall off my truck while I'm driving down the highway tomorrow, but Ford doesn't make a video about that scenario either. I'm not buying either the Leviton or SPAN products but I'm glad to see some innovation.
Click to expand...
Very bad analogy. I bet if you looked at your owners manual, there's instructions on how to change a tire. They even include a spare. People expect cars to break down and need maintenance. I can easily rent a car if I need to while mine is down. Not many people expect their electrical panels to fail. And if they do, they expect to be able to get parts at their local big box.

I can see lots of benefits to a SPAN type panel w/o having Solar/batteris or an EV.

But the implementation of power control, load monitoring, etc, should have been done at the breaker level, not on a big massive hard to replace control board. Yes, that makes it cheaper, but much less reliable. Good idea, bad implementation.
 
I think that it is amazing how many electricians bash the Leviton panels but yet have not installed one just because the orange big box store sells them. They also sell Dq D. Ummm. The Leviton panels have so much steel they are heavy. No wires to the breakers for easy change out from temp breakers for rough-in to finish breakers at final. Leviton has indicator lights so anyone can tell why the breaker trips. With SQ D you have to, what's that thing, reset and count the seconds or something like that. ummm. Leviton has been around for years making great products and the load center and breaker line is well thought out. If you prefer a German over engineered product go for it. Don't bash a product or brand that you have never had issues with.
 
Follow up on the previous post: I agree with not buying your switchgear at a big box store. I used to install Siemens load centers. Good product. My X-son-in-law purchased a Siemens load center from the green big box store. Same description but a whole lot cheaper built. Aluminum bus in lieu of copper. Short or missing ground bars. 1st generation arc-fault breakers. Buy from a wholesale house, please. You'll be doing your customers good.
 
I'm not against Leviton. Honestly I almost exclusively buy Leviton receptacles. What I hope, but wonder, is if Leviton will make it a long lived and supported product such that I can buy a breaker 20 years from now.
 
tthh said:
I'm not against Leviton. Honestly I almost exclusively buy Leviton receptacles. What I hope, but wonder, is if Leviton will make it a long lived and supported product such that I can buy a breaker 20 years from now.
Click to expand...
Not sure what will happen. I know that the major breaker manufacturer's are not letting Leviton participate in various groups related to the manufacture of breakers, but the only reason Levition went into breaker was because of he huge objections that breaker manufacturers had to outlet type AFCI devices.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Not sure what will happen. I know that the major breaker manufacturer's are not letting Leviton participate in various groups related to the manufacture of breakers, but the only reason Levition went into breaker was because of he huge objections that breaker manufacturers had to outlet type AFCI devices.
Click to expand...
I'm all for anyone else profiting from their scumminess in not providing good support to those of us who've tested for them at cost their designs. I'm also all for severe market disruption to spur development. Even if the disrupting one doesn't come out on top they atleast force the others to be better.
 
I just wish someoe would make a panel box wider than 15". Seems silly to cram all this stuff into such a narrow cavity. Not all installs are between studs.
 
VirutalElectrician said:
I just wish someoe would make a panel box wider than 15". Seems silly to cram all this stuff into such a narrow cavity. Not all installs are between studs.
Click to expand...
I've never installed a panel between studs. But I only work in commercial/industrial. I never even gave a thought to why they are 15 inches lol
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top