By Oliver M. Bayani
Homeowners can now also monitor their solar roofs manufactured by SunPower Corp. remotely through their smartphones running on Android.
The California-based company announced yesterday that it has included an application running on the Android mobile phone operating system in their SunPower Monit oring System suite.
The system enables households to track the performance of their solar rooftops purchased from SunPower alongside their home''s energy usage. Usage data can also be archived and shared with friends and family in real-time, according to statement.
Previously only accessible through a computer, the SunPower Monitoring System was first made remotely accessible through an application for iPhones running the iOS operating system. Based on pictures from the company''s website, the Android-based application is based on its predecessor.
All three methods require homeowners to log-on to a web-based interface to view how their solar roofs are performing, see how much energy their homes use and even how much carbon dioxide they have avoided all on an hourly, monthly, and annual basis.
The Android application can be downloaded free from Android Market and is available to new and existing customers of SunPower solar systems with monitoring capabilities.