Eaton and FranklinWH Smart Circuit Breakers Transform Residential Solar
The residential solar and storage market is entering a new phase of intelligent integration, and a fresh collaboration between Eaton and FranklinWH is set to push the boundaries of what homeowners can expect from their energy systems. By combining smart circuit breaker technology with advanced battery management, the two companies aim to deliver a more seamless, efficient, and resilient home energy experience.
A Smarter Approach to Home Energy Management
The partnership brings together Eaton’s AbleEdge smart breakers with FranklinWH’s aGate intelligent controller and aPower battery storage system. This integration allows homeowners to monitor and control individual circuits directly through the FranklinWH app, eliminating the need for separate hardware such as smart panels or additional load controllers.
With this unified system, users can prioritize which circuits stay powered during an outage, track energy consumption at the circuit level, and automate loads based on solar production or time-of-use rates. The result is a more granular level of control that previously required costly panel replacements or complex add-on devices.
Why Circuit-Level Control Matters
Traditional battery backup systems typically power either an entire home or a designated critical loads panel. Both approaches have drawbacks: whole-home backup can drain batteries quickly, while critical loads panels require expensive rewiring and limit flexibility. Smart breaker integration offers a middle path.
- Homeowners can dynamically adjust which loads are backed up without rewiring
- High-consumption appliances can be shed automatically during outages to extend backup runtime
- Energy usage data at the circuit level helps identify inefficiencies
- Solar self-consumption can be maximized by scheduling loads when production is highest
About Eaton
Eaton is a global power management company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with operations in more than 175 countries. Founded in 1911, Eaton provides energy-efficient solutions that help customers manage electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical power. Its residential electrical division has been expanding its smart home offerings, including the AbleEdge smart breaker platform designed to bring intelligence to standard load centers.
About FranklinWH
FranklinWH is a home energy management company that develops whole-home battery storage and energy management systems. The company’s flagship products, the aPower battery and aGate controller, provide up to 13.6 kWh of storage per unit and support stacking for larger capacity needs. FranklinWH has quickly become one of the more competitive players in the U.S. residential storage market, offering solutions compatible with both new and existing solar installations.
Benefits for Installers and Homeowners
For solar installers, the integration simplifies system design and installation. Rather than specifying a separate smart panel or dealing with multiple communication protocols, installers can deploy Eaton smart breakers within existing load centers and connect them to the FranklinWH system. This reduces material costs, installation time, and potential points of failure.
Homeowners benefit from a single app experience that ties together solar production, battery status, grid interaction, and individual circuit control. During an outage, the system can intelligently prioritize essential loads such as refrigeration, medical equipment, and lighting while shedding non-critical circuits