My solar died for 6 months, so I built a watchdog
Hi HN, Shawn here. My rooftop system lost about half a year of production and nobody told me. Not the installer, not the monitoring app, not the utility. I found out from an electric bill that made no sense, then spent weeks digging through the monitoring portal by hand. SunRanker is what I wished existed that day. Connect a system once (Enphase OAuth, or a SolarEdge site ID plus API key) and it reads production daily, shows it in plain language, and emails you when something actually changes. Three alerts only. The connection broke, the monitoring went quiet, or output has been well below…
In plain words
SunRanker monitors residential solar systems by connecting once to Enphase or SolarEdge infrastructure, then checking production daily and alerting owners via email when problems occur. Built for homeowners whose solar panels have failed silently, the tool sends plain-language notifications only when the system connection breaks, monitoring stops, or output drops significantly below baseline—avoiding daily alerts and catching issues months faster than standard monitoring apps. It displays production clearly and includes monthly summaries.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Connect your system once and know your solar is doing its job. A clean picture of your production, plain-language health, and an email the moment something breaks.
Connect it once and SunRanker checks your production every day, shows it to you in plain language, and emails you the moment something breaks. Panels don't make a sound when they stop earning. The monitoring app doesn't call you. An inverter can sit dead through your best production months, and the first sign is usually an electric bill that makes no sense . SunRanker re-reads your system every day and treats silence as a problem, not a blank spot on a chart. When something changes, you get one plain email about it. Not a daily drip, and never months late. The connection broke, so nobody is watching. Sent the day it happens. Monitoring stopped reporting while the panels may still be fine.…from sunranker.com
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN, Shawn here. My rooftop system lost about half a year of production and nobody told me. Not the installer, not the monitoring app, not the utility. I found out from an electric bill that made no sense, then spent weeks digging through the monitoring portal by hand. SunRanker is what I wished existed that day. Connect a system once (Enphase OAuth, or a SolarEdge site ID plus API key) and it reads production daily, shows it in plain language, and emails you when something actually changes. Three alerts only. The connection broke, the monitoring went quiet, or output has been well below your own typical for days. Plus a short monthly review. No daily drip. It's free, and my own system is on the homepage with its bad months showing. The gray months are my monitoring going quiet. Would love feedback on the alert thresholds (drop detection is five days under half of a 28 day baseline) and which brand to support next. Tesla makes this hard for third parties. Stack, for the curious. Laravel, Livewire, MySQL, and one scheduled job doing the nightly checks.
Does the same job
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I kept trying to explain how important outdoor light is and how most people aren’t getting enough. Eventually I figured that showing is more effective than telling. So we built a free app that uses your Apple Watch or iPhone to automatically track your light exposure throughout the day. It tells you if you’re getting enough, shows you how consistent you are, and rewards habits that support hormone balance. It's in beta on TestFlight, let me know what you think!
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Hey HN, I'm building a service that monitors your webapp and gives you a definitive signal when something is broken, all with minimal setup. You can check it out at: https://www.catalystmonitor.com/, read the docs at: https://docs.catalystmonitor.com/, or see the dashboard at: https://app.catalystmonitor.com/ You can also see a (very quickly made) demo at: https://www.loom.com/share/5b38a328ded94f93a980f1ba28081329?sid=5afe55d1-0e0a-42a1-b748-1c230eacd430 I've seen how having robust internal monitoring infra maintained by…
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