The short version
WattHacker is operated by Tony Willcox, a sole proprietor in San Mateo County, California, and it is new — the first monitors shipped at the end of July 2026. If you were hoping to find a long track record and a wall of independent reviews, you won't, and you shouldn't let a website talk you out of noticing that.
What we'd rather do than perform maturity we don't have is answer the questions plainly, so you can judge the risk yourself. The full set lives on the trust page; the ones people ask most are below.
What access does it need? (This is the one people get wrong)
No SunPower login. No SunStrong login. No credentials at all. This surprises people, because every cloud service they've dealt with wanted an account. The WattHacker monitor doesn't use anyone's cloud account — it reads the PVS6 gateway directly on your own home network, the same way a printer talks to your laptop. There is simply nothing for you to hand over.
Two things follow from that, both of which matter more than they sound. It is read-only — it sends no commands and changes no settings, so it can't affect your equipment or your warranty. And it needs no port forwarding and no inbound access to your home network; the box reaches out, nothing reaches in.
What about vendor longevity — aren't I just swapping one cloud for another?
This is the sharpest question anyone asks us, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a reassuring one.
Partly, yes — today. The monitor reads your panels locally, but it currently sends those readings to our app to display them. If WattHacker vanished, the box would keep reading your system and you'd have nowhere to look at it.
What's different is what you'd be left holding. Export is never locked — not behind a plan, not behind a cancellation flow — so your history is downloadable as a spreadsheet at any moment, on the free plan too. We removed that paywall deliberately: holding data hostage to keep people subscribed is a version of the problem we exist because of. And critically, your panels never depended on us. Nothing we do can switch your system off — which was never true of the vendor that sold it to you.
What we won't do
- We don't sell your data, to anyone, ever. There's no ad business and no data-broker relationship here — you pay for the product, which is exactly why we don't have to monetize you some other way.
- We don't publish testimonials or reviews we don't have. You won't find invented five-star quotes on this site. We're too new to have earned them.
- We don't claim to be bigger than we are. One person, in California, who got orphaned by SunPower and built the thing he wanted.
If there's something you need to know before you'd buy — including whether you can talk to somebody already running one — email tony@watthacker.com and ask. A hard question answered is a better outcome for both of us than an unanswered one.
Where WattHacker fits
The WattHacker monitor is a small box that plugs into your existing SunPower PVS6 gateway on your own home network and reads it directly. It doesn't rely on SunPower's or SunStrong's servers, because for owners like you those are either gone or behind a paywall. No technician, no electrician, no rewiring — you plug it in yourself.
- The monitor is $50 once (list $100), with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Free to see your panel data, forever — every panel, live, no subscription and no card on file.
- An optional premium plan at $6/mo (billed annually) adds the memory: full history kept for good, year-over-year comparison, and alerts told to you in dollars.
- Built by an electrification superfan who wants to help others use their solar smarter, lower their utility bills, and clean up the planet. Who's behind it.
Common questions
Who legally operates WattHacker?
WattHacker is operated by Tony Willcox, a sole proprietor located in San Mateo County, California, USA. The operator is named in the published Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which are governed by California law. Contact goes directly to the founder at tony@watthacker.com.
How long has WattHacker been operating?
WattHacker is new. It took its first order in July 2026 and shipped its first monitors at the end of July 2026. It is a one-person operation and does not claim otherwise. The monitor is a one-time $50 with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and there is a live demo you can inspect without signing up.
Does WattHacker need my SunPower or SunStrong login?
No. WattHacker requires no cloud account credentials of any kind. The monitor reads your PVS6 gateway directly over your own home network, so there is nothing to hand over. It also requires no port forwarding and no inbound access to your network — the device only makes outbound connections.
Can WattHacker change anything on my solar system?
No. The monitor is read-only. It sends no commands, changes no settings and does not update firmware on your panels, inverters or gateway — which is why it does not affect your equipment warranty.
Can I export my data, and what happens if WattHacker shuts down?
Export is not gated behind a paid plan — every account, including the free one, can download its full stored history as a spreadsheet at any time. If WattHacker shut down, the monitor would keep reading your system locally but you would have nowhere to view it, which is why the export is never locked. Your solar panels themselves never depended on WattHacker and would keep running normally.