Key takeaways
- A smart electrical panel measures and controls power circuit by circuit and reports it to an app on your phone.
- The strongest case for a smart panel is adding a battery, solar or an EV charger to a house whose service is already close to full.
- SPAN replaces the panel outright, while products such as the Lumin Smart Panel work alongside the panel you already have, and Leviton offers smart breakers in its own load center.
- A load calculation should come before any smart panel purchase, because it tells you whether you need load management, a service upgrade or neither.
- In San Antonio a panel replacement is permitted through the Development Services Department and inspected before the power is restored for good.
You have read about a smart electrical panel that lets you see every circuit on your phone, shut off the pool pump from the office and keep the lights on during an outage with a battery. You want to know what one costs in San Antonio, whether it is worth it in your house, and whether it is the right tool or an expensive version of something simpler.
This guide answers those questions plainly. It explains what a smart panel does that a standard breaker panel does not, how SPAN compares with the alternatives at a level you can act on, where the real value shows up, and how the cost is built. We do not quote hardware prices for brands we do not control, because they change. We do quote our own labor, flat, before any work starts.
What a smart electrical panel actually does
A standard breaker panel does one job well: it protects each circuit from overload and short circuit by tripping a breaker. It does not tell you anything. You learn a circuit is overloaded when it trips, and you learn what your house uses when the CPS Energy bill arrives.
A smart electrical panel adds two things on top of that protection. The first is measurement at the circuit level, so you can see in an app what the air conditioner, the water heater, the dryer and the EV charger are each drawing right now and over time. The second is control: the panel can switch individual circuits on or off, by schedule, from your phone, or automatically when a rule you set is met.
That control is the feature that matters most. Measurement is interesting for a month. Control is what lets a battery run longer in an outage, lets an EV charger share capacity with the range, and in some houses lets you add a large load without paying for a bigger electrical service.
SPAN, Leviton and Lumin: three approaches to a smart panel
The products on the market fall into a few patterns. Knowing which pattern a product follows tells you more about the install than any spec sheet.
- SPAN: the best-known name. A SPAN panel replaces your existing breaker panel entirely. Monitoring and switching are built into the panel itself, and it is designed to work with home batteries and solar. Because it is a full panel replacement, the install is a panel swap with everything that comes with one.
- Leviton: Leviton sells a load center with smart breakers that report to its app. You get circuit-level monitoring on the breakers you choose to make smart, inside a conventional style of panel.
- Lumin: the Lumin Smart Panel is installed next to your existing panel rather than in place of it. Selected circuits are routed through it for monitoring and control, which can make sense when the panel you have is in good condition and you only need control over a handful of large loads.
There are also monitoring-only devices that clip sensors onto the wires inside your panel. They show you usage but cannot switch anything off, so they do not help with battery runtime or load management. If control is what you are after, a monitor alone is the wrong purchase.
If you are not sure which approach fits your house, call us or book a visit and we will look at the panel you have before recommending anything.
When a smart electrical panel is worth it
A smart panel earns its cost when it solves a problem you would otherwise solve with something more expensive or less useful. In our experience that comes down to four situations.
Battery backup. With a home battery and a standard panel, you usually choose in advance which circuits the battery can power, and those circuits get moved to a separate critical loads subpanel. A smart panel lets you make that choice in the app, and change it during the outage. In July you can keep the air conditioner and shed the pool. In February you can keep the furnace blower and the refrigerator and shed everything else. That flexibility can stretch the same battery a good deal further.
Solar. If you have solar or plan to add it, a smart panel shows production and consumption together and can work with a battery to decide where the power goes. It does not make solar panels produce more. It makes the power they produce easier to use well.
EV charging. A Level 2 charger is one of the largest loads in a house. In a home that is already close to its service limit, a smart panel can pause or throttle the charger while the oven and the air conditioner are running, then let it charge overnight. That is load management, and it is the reason some owners buy a smart panel in the first place.
Avoiding a service upgrade. Current editions of the National Electrical Code recognize energy management systems that keep the total load within what the service can carry. When the inspector accepts that approach, a smart panel can be the difference between adding an EV charger on your existing service and paying for a larger service with new conductors and a new meter base. Whether that path is open in your house depends on the load calculation, the equipment and the inspector, so we confirm it before we price it.
If an EV charger is the reason you are reading this, our post on EV charger panel capacity in San Antonio walks through the capacity question in detail, and our EV charger installation page shows how we handle the install.
When a smart panel is not the right call
We tell owners plainly when a smart panel is the wrong purchase. If you have no battery, no solar, no EV and no plans for any of them, and your panel is in good condition with room to spare, a smart panel gives you an interesting app and a large bill. Whole-home surge protection or a few new circuits would do more for the same house.
It is also not a fix for a panel that has a deeper problem. If your house has aluminum branch wiring, a service that is genuinely too small for the way you live, or a meter base that needs replacing, a smart panel sits on top of those problems rather than solving them. And if your current panel is a Federal Pacific or Zinsco, the panel needs replacing regardless. In that case a smart panel can be the replacement, but the decision starts with the safety problem.
For older panels with known problems, start with our guide to Federal Pacific panel replacement, and for the full cost picture on standard panels, read electrical panel upgrade and replacement cost.
What drives smart electrical panel cost
SPAN smart panel cost, and smart panel cost generally, splits into two parts that are priced differently. The first is the hardware, which you buy from the manufacturer or through the installer at the price the manufacturer sets. The second is the installation, which is the electrical work and is where your electrician's price lives.
For a full-replacement smart panel such as SPAN, the installation is a panel replacement. The labor covers removing the old panel, mounting the new one, landing every circuit, bonding and grounding to current code, the permit and the inspection. The price moves with the same things that move any panel replacement: the condition of the existing wiring at the panel, whether circuits need extending to reach the new panel, the state of the grounding electrode system and whether the meter or service entrance needs work at the same time.
When a smart panel is replacing an existing 200-amp panel in the same location, our starting point is the Panel replacement, like-for-like 200A task, from $3,639, with the smart panel hardware added on the written quote at the price you approve. You see both numbers before anyone opens the panel. Starting price. Your tech confirms the final number on site before any work.
For a side-mounted product such as Lumin, the labor is different. The existing panel stays, the selected circuits are rerouted through the new device and the communication link is set up. That can be less work than a full swap, or about the same, depending on how many circuits move and how much room there is beside the panel. We price it after seeing the wall.
Two things add cost that owners do not always expect. Smart panels rely on a stable internet connection, so a garage panel far from the router may need a wired connection or an access point. And if the smart panel is being installed with a battery, the battery interconnection is its own line of work with its own permit considerations.
Start with the load calculation, not the brochure
Every good smart panel decision starts with one document: a load calculation. It tells you what your house draws now, what it would draw with the EV charger, the battery or the heat pump you are planning, and how that compares with what your service can carry. It answers the question the brochure cannot, which is whether you need load management, a bigger service or neither.
We do this as a standalone service, and in our price book it is the Load calculation and capacity report task, from $709. The written report is signed by a Texas licensed master electrician and stays useful whichever way you decide. Starting price. Your tech confirms the final number on site before any work.
If the calculation shows you have room, you may not need a smart panel at all to add an EV charger. If it shows you are just over the line, a smart panel with load management may be the least expensive way forward. If it shows you are well over, a service upgrade is the honest answer, and a smart panel becomes an option on top of the upgrade rather than a substitute for it.
Every price in our book is published. See how flat-rate pricing works on our pricing page, and ask us to start with the load calculation when you book a visit.
Permits, CPS Energy and the install day
Replacing a panel in San Antonio requires an electrical permit from the City of San Antonio Development Services Department, and the work is inspected before it is closed up. Suburban cities in the area run their own permit offices, and we pull the permit wherever the house sits. You do not handle the paperwork.
On a full panel swap the house is without power for most of the working day. Where the work requires the meter to be pulled or the service to be disconnected at the utility side, that is coordinated with CPS Energy, and we schedule around it. If solar or a battery is part of the project, CPS Energy has its own interconnection process for equipment that can send power to the grid, and that approval comes before the system is switched on for good.
Once the panel is in and inspected, we set up the app with you, label every circuit by what it actually serves and walk you through the controls you are most likely to use. A smart panel with circuits labeled "Circuit 14" is a smart panel nobody uses.
For the permit side in more detail, read electrical permits in San Antonio. For the panel work itself, see our panel upgrades service page.
How we handle a smart panel project
Wattsmith Electric is a veteran-owned residential electrical contractor licensed by TDLR under TECL 41806. We work from a published, flat-rate price book. On a smart panel project that means a site visit, a load calculation where it is warranted, a written quote that separates our labor from the hardware, and a flat price you approve before work starts. We pull the permit, schedule the inspection and coordinate with CPS Energy where the job calls for it.
If a smart panel is the right tool, we install it and set it up properly. If it is not, we tell you what is, and that is usually a less expensive answer.
Call us and we will tell you over the phone whether your situation needs a visit. To schedule, contact Wattsmith Electric, or see the neighborhoods we cover on our service areas page.