Looking for a full walkthrough of how the app works? See the Help guide. For the fine print, see Terms and Privacy.
Yes. GridSentinel reads your live wholesale prices and forecasts through Amber's API, so an active Amber Electric account on the wholesale spot market is required. Without it there's nothing for the engine to act on. More about Amber.
Today GridSentinel supports Tesla Powerwall (2 and 3), Sigenergy SigenStor, and FoxESS.
Other brands (AlphaESS, Enphase, BYD, Goodwe, Sungrow, Solax and others) aren't supported yet. If you have one of those, join the waitlist on the homepage and tell us which battery you have. The brand with the most signups goes next.
For what each brand needs during setup, see Your battery in the Help guide.
Your API key lives on Amber's website (app.amber.com.au), not the Amber mobile app.
Your token is shown only once. Copy it somewhere safe before closing the dialog, then paste it into GridSentinel during onboarding. The key starts with psk_.
Yes. Two services controlling the same battery conflict, so SmartShift needs to be off before GridSentinel takes over. The same path works for Tesla Powerwall, Sigenergy and FoxESS.
Then head back to GridSentinel and continue the Connect Battery step.
Every five minutes it reads your current Amber price, looks at the forecast, checks your battery, and decides what your battery should do next: export to the grid, charge, curtail export, or sit in normal mode. It sends that command to your battery and records the decision with a plain-English reason you can read back in the History tab.
You don't drive it minute by minute. You pick an automation mode and the engine handles the rest. For the full picture, see How it works.
No. You set a minimum battery reserve (5% to 50%, in Settings under Battery safety), and GridSentinel will never issue an export command that takes you below it. GridSentinel doesn't discharge your battery directly; it sends mode commands and your battery's firmware holds the floor.
On Tesla Powerwall and FoxESS, GridSentinel keeps your battery's own backup reserve in sync with this figure automatically (FoxESS won't go below 10%). On Sigenergy, set the reserve in your Sigenergy app to match, since that's the value that physically protects the battery during self-consumption. More detail in Settings & safety.
Every time GridSentinel decides what to do, it counts battery wear as a real cost in that decision, right alongside the price. It only exports or charges when the price opportunity is worth more than the wear it puts on the battery, so it isn't cycling for the sake of it, only when it pays.
How hard it works the battery is your call, through your profile:
Two things hold whichever profile you pick: it never discharges below your reserve floor, and it re-checks the plan every five minutes rather than reacting to every small price move, so it isn't flipping the battery in and out more than it needs to.
The honest bit: earning from price swings does involve some cycling, and a more aggressive profile does more of it. If battery longevity matters most, Battery Saver weighs wear the heaviest; if you want to squeeze the most from price events, Maximiser trades some extra cycling for it. You can switch any time.
Yes, at any time.
More detail in Settings & safety.
The engine has hard limits it never crosses: your minimum reserve, no commands at all until you finish onboarding and tap Activate, and an automatic pause if it hits errors on three cycles in a row. Standby and Disconnect are always one tap away.
GridSentinel requests mode changes through your battery manufacturer's own cloud API. The manufacturer's firmware ultimately carries them out, so your battery's built-in safety systems always apply. See the safety guardrails for the full list.
GridSentinel is an auto-renewing subscription. The available plans, billing periods and current prices are shown in the app at the point of purchase, in Australian dollars including GST where applicable.
We may offer a free trial. If a trial is running and you don't cancel before it ends, it converts automatically to a paid subscription at the price for the plan you chose. A payment method may be required to start a trial.
Payments are processed by the app store you bought through, the Apple App Store or Google Play, using the payment method on your store account. We never receive or store your card or bank details.
The store confirms to us only whether your subscription is active. Billing doesn't expose your name, email, or battery data to us.
Cancel any time through your Apple App Store or Google Play account settings. To avoid being charged for the next period, cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends, per the app store's rules. You keep access to paid features until the end of the period you've already paid for.
Deleting your GridSentinel account does not cancel your subscription. You must cancel through the store separately to stop further charges.
While your subscription is active, including any grace or payment-retry period the app store provides, GridSentinel keeps operating normally.
Once it has fully lapsed, the engine stops making automated decisions and leaves your battery in a safe hold. Your battery stays in whatever mode it was last set to, running under its own manufacturer firmware. It's worth confirming your battery is in an appropriate operating mode.
Because payments are handled by the app stores, refund requests go through Apple or Google under their own refund policies. We can't generally issue refunds ourselves.
This doesn't limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. If you believe you're entitled to a remedy under the ACL, email hello@gridsentinel.app and we'll work with you directly. See Terms section 9 and 11.
Your subscription is tied to the app store account you bought it with. Sign in with the same Apple ID or Google account, and restore an active subscription from within the app.
The dashboard shows a banner naming the reason and the next step.
Separately, if you've gone 14 days without opening the app, the engine pauses as a precaution against acting on stale state. There's no banner for this: just open the app to pick your automation back up.
First check the History tab. Cycles run every five minutes, so recent rows mean the engine is alive and sending commands. If it's sending commands but the battery isn't following, the usual causes are:
If 15 minutes pass with no change, tap Feedback & Support in Settings to send diagnostic info.
A small negative figure (usually a few cents) can appear during negative feed-in pricing. The most common cause is AC-coupled solar.
If your solar is AC-coupled, GridSentinel curtails the battery but can't throttle a separate solar inverter. Excess solar can keep flowing to the grid during a negative-price window even after the battery has stopped exporting, producing a small negative interval we couldn't prevent. Whether export stops completely depends on how your system is wired, not your battery brand.
Amber keys are tied to your Amber account. They become invalid if you've revoked the key in the Amber app, or rarely if Amber rotate keys server-side.
Generate a fresh token at app.amber.com.au (Settings → Developer mode, then For Developers → Generate a new token) and paste it into Settings → Linked services in GridSentinel. The token is shown only once.
Only what's needed to operate the automation. You provide your email, battery type, Amber API key, battery credentials, and NEM region. To run the engine we then use:
We use your information only to run and support the service. The full breakdown is in the Privacy Policy.
No. We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information, we don't use it for advertising or behavioural profiling, and we don't use third-party analytics tools that receive your personal data. There are no advertising or analytics cookies on the website either.
On Amazon Web Services in the ap-southeast-2 (Sydney) region, so your core data is stored and processed in Australia.
A few specific things are handled by overseas processors: subscription status is verified in the United States, and push-notification tokens and crash diagnostics go through Google's Firebase. Only the limited data described in the Privacy Policy is shared with each, and never your credentials or API keys.
They're stored encrypted at rest and only decrypted in memory when the engine needs them. They're never logged, never shown in plaintext, and not visible in the app after you connect. All communication uses TLS (HTTPS and WSS).
No. Subscription payments are handled entirely by the Apple App Store or Google Play; we never receive or store your card or bank details. We also don't collect your Amber bill, account balance, or tariff details, your home address, or any solar specs beyond what your battery's API reports.
Engine decision records (mode, price, state of charge, reason) are kept for 24 months, then automatically deleted. Application and error logs are kept for 30 days. Push-notification tokens last until you uninstall the app or the token expires.
When you delete your account, decision records are anonymised and continue on the same 24-month clock. Full detail is on the Account & Data Deletion page.
In the app: Settings (bottom nav) → Account → Delete account, then confirm. Your session is revoked immediately. If you no longer have the app, email hello@gridsentinel.app from your sign-in address with the subject "Account deletion request" and we'll action it within 30 days.
Your email, credentials, API key, battery details, push tokens and sign-in record are removed on request. Operational records (decision logs, anonymised, plus a minimal deletion tombstone) are retained for 24 months then auto-deleted, and app logs for 30 days. You can ask us to purge the retained records early. Full detail: Account & Data Deletion.
Open the app, go to Settings, scroll to Linked services, and tap disconnect next to your battery. We stop sending commands and your battery returns to its default behaviour. You'd re-onboard the battery to use GridSentinel with it again.
For a temporary break (a holiday, or work being done), use Standby instead: Settings → Automation → Standby. It stops the engine without removing the connection.
The fastest way is in-app: Settings → Feedback & Support sends a report with diagnostic info attached, so we can usually answer without a back-and-forth.
If you'd rather email, write to hello@gridsentinel.app.