Straight answers
What we do, what we don’t, and what we can’t.
Most of what follows is a list of limits. We would rather you found them here than discovered them later, and a competitor’s brochure that has no such list is not a brochure for a better product.
The commitments
Every one of these is testable
| PowerSync does | PowerSync never |
|---|---|
| Pauses your geyser's heating during municipal peak windows and grid events. | Switches your geyser off below the hot-water level you set. |
| Heats your geyser again as soon as the window ends, or immediately when you boost. | Stops you boosting. A boost during a live event starts when the event ends, and we tell you when. |
| Shows you every event: before it starts, while it runs, and afterwards. | Changes your thermostat, or touches your geyser, element or plumbing. |
| Tells apart a grid event, a power outage in your area, and a fault. | Leaves you guessing which of those is happening. |
| Lets you leave the programme from the app, at any time, without giving a reason. | Charges you to leave, or makes you phone someone to do it. |
| Measures the electricity your water heating uses, so the reduction can be verified. | Reads water temperature, or claims to detect leaks. The controller cannot do either. |
Physical limits
Things this controller is not able to do
It cannot read your water temperature
There is no probe in or on your tank, and there never will be — the product deliberately does no work on the geyser itself. Everything the app tells you about how much hot water you have is inferred from the behaviour of your thermostat, and the app presents it as an estimate.
It cannot detect a leak
Some competing products imply that they can. Detecting a leak means measuring water, and this controller measures electricity. If a claim requires a sensor we have not fitted, we do not make the claim.
It cannot see what else is in your house
It measures the geyser circuit and the total at your main incomer. It cannot tell a kettle from a kiln, it does not disaggregate appliances, and it does not listen to anything.
It cannot keep your geyser off when you have said no
Your hot-water floor and your boost button both override a peak window. The only thing a boost cannot jump is a live grid event, and then it is queued with a stated start time rather than refused.
It cannot be switched on from our side after you leave
Withdrawal disables the device's authority to act. Removal is arranged at no cost to you.
Your data
What we hold, and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Electrical measurements from the geyser circuit and your main incomer | Running the control, and measuring the reduction so it can be verified |
| The state the controller reports, and each instruction we sent it | Showing you what happened, and answering you accurately when you call |
| Your name, contact details, address and meter number | Identifying your supply point, arranging the installation, and contacting you |
| The consents you gave, the version of the wording, and when | Proving the programme is voluntary, which is the point of recording it |
| Installation records — the installer, the serial, the certificate, board photographs | Traceability of the electrical work, and safety |
Municipalities receive aggregated results, not your household’s data. Your consumption is not passed to your municipality as an identifiable record, and it is not sold, shared for advertising, or used to build a profile of you.
The full detail — lawful basis, retention periods, the companies that process data on our behalf, where in the world it sits and how to object — is in the privacy notice.
Leaving
How to get out, in the order you would need it
Within 7 days of enrolling on this website
Because you enrolled on this website, you may cancel within seven days of enrolling, without giving a reason and without penalty. This is your right under section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002. Email us or use the app; nothing has usually been installed yet.
Within 5 business days of signing up at your door
If you enrolled at your door rather than on this website, you may cancel within five business days of enrolling, without giving a reason and without penalty. This is a different right, under section 16 of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, and it applies to direct marketing rather than to online enrolment.
At any time after that
Open the app, go to settings, and choose to withdraw. No reason, no phone call, no charge. We arrange for the controller to be removed or permanently disabled and we stop controlling your geyser from the moment you withdraw.
If you want your data deleted as well
Ask, and we delete what we are not legally required to keep. What we must keep, why, and for how long is listed in the privacy notice rather than described vaguely here.
Read the limits and still interested?
Then you know more about this product than most people know about anything in their distribution board.