Mobile app
Energy
Design system

Chilicon Power · case study

From an engineer's dashboard to an answer in one second.

Solar monitoring for systems built on microinverters. In 2021 I designed the first mobile app for a data-heavy engineering dashboard; in 2026 I redesigned it around one question, is my system OK, for homeowners and installers, and built it as a working prototype with AI.

Role: UX/UI Designer
Timeline: 2021 · revisited 2026
Company: Chilicon Power
Location: California, USA
Team: The only UX/UI designer in a team of 6: 1 front-end and 2 back-end developers, 1 QA, 1 PM

Deliverables

UX audit
User flows
Alert model
Mobile prototype
Design system

Live demo Design system

Home: all 24 panels producing, a live energy flow drawn as a house, and today's numbers — Homeowner: the answer first

Panel detail: panel 7 is producing 40% less, with the likely cause and what to do — A problem, with its cause

Installer's sites list: one offline, two with issues, seventeen OK — Installer: problems first

to know the system is fine: the status card comes first: 1 s
roles in one app, one data model: 2
codes to type in setup: scan the gateway: 0
contrast in light and dark, 0 axe violations: AA

Overview

The data told engineers everything. It told homeowners nothing.

Chilicon Power, founded in 2009 in Southern California and part of Generac since 2021, makes microinverters: small boxes behind the solar panels. Its CP-720 serves two panels at once, so a roof reports output for every pair, not just a total. That makes it possible to spot one failing panel on a roof of twenty-four.

All of that lived in a desktop dashboard built for engineers: gauges, heatmaps, per-device line charts. The warranty depends on the system staying connected, yet owners had no reason to open a tool that never answered their question.

In 2021 I was the only UX/UI designer on a team of six that brought monitoring to mobile for the first time. In 2026 I audited that app, redesigned it around one question, is my system OK, and built it with AI as a working prototype for homeowners and installers.

Two people look at the same roof for different reasons.

Homeowner
Checks once a day or less; more often right after installation or when the bill arrives. Does not know what a microinverter is.
Reassurance that it works, proof of what it saves, and a heads-up only when something needs doing.
Installer
Maintains dozens of sites, often on the road. Commissions new systems standing on a driveway with a phone.
Problems first, sorted by severity, with enough detail to fix remotely before rolling a truck.

Research

Our 2021 app moved the dashboard to a phone. It never answered the question.

I went back to our 2021 screens and the desktop dashboard they came from, and reviewed them against what an owner and an installer actually need to know.

01No answer to “is it working?”
02Live or stale looked the same
03The flow had no direction
04Per-panel data stayed on desktop
05Setup meant copying codes
06Charts that misled

Define

Answer first, details on demand.

Every screen starts with a sentence, then numbers, then charts. Home says “All 24 panels producing · Updated 2 min ago” before anything else. The roof map shows which pair is weak without reading a chart, and a panel's detail says the likely cause and the next step.

Home with the status card first and the energy flow below — A sentence, then numbers

Roof map: panels coloured by output, panel 7 lighter with a warning mark — The roof as a health view

Panel 7 detail with a cause card: microinverter not reporting — Cause and next step

I mapped the fault before the screens.

One weak panel crosses both roles. The flow shows the three likely causes, when an owner is told, and where the installer takes over, including owners with no installer linked.

Flow: a push says panel 7 produces 40% less than its neighbors; the owner opens the panel detail; likely cause is shade or dirt (tips and a reminder in 3 days), weather (whole system low, no action, resolved) or the device (microinverter not reporting). For the device, if an installer is linked the owner contacts them with a report, otherwise finds a certified installer nearby. The installer sees the alert and the technical view and restarts the device or visits. If output is back to normal it is resolved with a note and the owner sees all panels OK; otherwise it loops back to the installer. — The scenario the prototype can be clicked through end to end: panel 7 drops, the owner reports it, the installer restarts the microinverter remotely and resolves it, the owner sees all panels OK. Scroll sideways, or open it full size.

Alert only when there is something to do.

A cloudy day is not an alert. A silent microinverter is. I wrote down what each situation looks like in the data and what each role should see, so the app never cries wolf.

01 · Night
In the data
No output, sun is down
2021 app
Numbers fall to zero, no reason
What the owner sees
“Night. Panels start around 6:12 am”
Installer
Nothing
Push notification
No
02 · Cloudy day
In the data
Every panel low by the same amount
2021 app
Looks like a fault
What the owner sees
“Cloudy day. Nothing to fix”
Installer
Nothing
Push notification
No
03 · Shade or dirt
In the data
One panel low, mostly afternoons
2021 app
Unnoticed for weeks
What the owner sees
Likely shade or dirt, 3 steps, reminder
Installer
Alert with the likely cause
Push notification
Yes, once
04 · Silent microinverter
In the data
One device drops out
2021 app
Visible only on desktop
What the owner sees
Not reporting, contact installer
Installer
Alert, tagged if the owner reported it; remote restart
Push notification
Yes
05 · Gateway offline
In the data
No data at all
2021 app
Stale numbers, no timestamp
What the owner sees
What to check: power, Wi-Fi, retry
Installer
Offline site on top; visit
Push notification
Yes, after an hour

	Night	Cloudy day	Shade or dirt	Silent microinverter	Gateway offline
In the data	No output, sun is down	Every panel low by the same amount	One panel low, mostly afternoons	One device drops out	No data at all
2021 app	Numbers fall to zero, no reason	Looks like a fault	Unnoticed for weeks	Visible only on desktop	Stale numbers, no timestamp
What the owner sees	“Night. Panels start around 6:12 am”	“Cloudy day. Nothing to fix”	Likely shade or dirt, 3 steps, reminder	Not reporting, contact installer	What to check: power, Wi-Fi, retry
Installer	Nothing	Nothing	Alert with the likely cause	Alert, tagged if the owner reported it; remote restart	Offline site on top; visit
Push notification	No	No	Yes, once	Yes	Yes, after an hour

Before and after

Every finding, next to what replaced it.

Finding 01

Home showed numbers, never an answer

A status card comes first, with how fresh the data is. The energy flow became a house with a value and a direction on every line: “Exporting 1.6 kW”, battery “Charging”.

Our 2021 home screen with the house label, the grid node and the chart marked — ① “0.5 Kw”: tiny, wrong unit, no status ② grid with no value or direction ③ no “updated” time

The 2026 home screen: status card, energy flow house, today's numbers — Answer, then the flow

The 2026 home screen with panel 7 producing 40% less — The same card when a panel is weak

Finding 02

Charts looked right and weren't

Energy totals are bars in kWh, power is a curve in kW, never mixed. The running period is hatched, and tapping a bar opens exact values with the weather that day.

Our 2021 month view with the Month tab, the axis and the line chart marked — ① “Month” selected ② the axis shows one week ③ energy totals drawn as a line

The 2026 month view with daily bars, produced and used — A real month, in bars

The 2026 bar detail sheet with produced, used, exported and saved — Tap a bar for exact values

Finding 03

Setup meant copying codes

Scan the QR on the gateway; manual entry is the fallback, with the sticker drawn and the line you are typing highlighted. One address search replaces four pickers.

Our 2021 new installation form with the location pickers, the gateway codes and the grey button marked — ① four location pickers ② gateway ID and code typed by hand ③ a grey primary button that looks disabled

The 2026 gateway scan with a camera viewfinder — Scan the gateway

The 2026 manual entry with the sticker and the code line highlighted — Fallback: copy from the sticker

Finding 04

Sign-up hid what mattered

Real labels, password rules that tick as you type, and the role as the first real choice, because it decides the whole app.

Our 2021 registration form with the fields, the role checkboxes and the Register button marked — ① “Placeholder” instead of a hint ② the role as small checkboxes at the bottom ③ a grey Register button

The 2026 role choice: homeowner or installer — The role, first and clear

Key flows

Two roles and a setup, clicked through end to end.

Homeowner

Check, understand, act

Home answers in a second; Energy explains any day, week, month or year; Panels shows the roof. Savings use the owner's own rate and export credit, and ask for it only where the number would be.

See the homeowner user flow

Energy by hour with produced and used bars — Energy, by hour

Home after the fix: all 24 panels producing — Fixed, and told so

Installer

Fleet first, fix remotely

Sites sorted by status, alerts across the fleet, and a technical view per site. Restart a device or update firmware from the phone; schedule a visit when the gateway is offline; resolve with a note the owner will read.

See the installer user flow

Alerts across the fleet with an owner report on top — Owner reports come tagged

Technical view: firmware update and microinverters, the weak one first — Every microinverter

Restarting a microinverter remotely, with progress — Restart, no truck roll

Setup

From the box to the first numbers

Sign up, choose a role, scan the gateway, confirm the address and size, connect. If the gateway cannot be reached, the app lists what to check instead of failing. Invited owners skip all of it.

See the setup user flow

Welcome: see every panel, every day — Welcome

Connecting failed with three things to check and Try again — Offline: what to check

Invite from the installer with the system details — Or just accept the invite

Hard states

Most of the time, the right answer is “nothing to do”.

Home at night: panels start around 6:12 am, running on battery — Night, on battery

Home on a cloudy day: low output, nothing to fix — Cloudy: not an alert

Home with the gateway offline since 9:14 am — Offline: since when, what to check

Home right after setup, waiting for the first data — First data on its way

Design system

A system built from the logo, in light and dark.

The sun orange of the logo is the brand and solar energy; its leaf green is “all good”. Battery is blue and the grid violet, and those four energy colours never swap meaning. SF Pro, iOS large titles that collapse, a floating tab bar. Tokens live in one file and drive the app and Storybook, where every component and every real screen is documented.

•Units are sacred: kW for power, kWh for energy, never mixed
•Status is always icon and words, never colour alone
•The dark theme is near-black and neutral; colour comes only from energy and status
•Every number is tabular; touch targets are 44 points

The Chilicon Power logo: a sun over a leaf. Its two colours became the two anchors of the palette, and the mark became the app icon, on white and on near-black for iOS dark mode.

Sun#FBAB16· from the logoBrand and solar energy: primary buttons, production bars, the flow from the roof
Leaf#00AA79· from the logoStatus OK: “All 24 panels producing”
Battery#1E7FC2Battery charge and discharge. Blue, so it never reads as the green OK
Grid#6B6FD6Grid import and export

Roof map in the dark theme — Panels, dark

Installer sites in the dark theme — Sites, dark

Device restart in the dark theme — Restart, dark

Open the design system

Outcome

What exists today.

roles connected in one clickable fault-to-fix scenario

screens, from sign-up to a remote restart, in light and dark

components documented in Storybook, plus every real screen

scenarios reachable by link: night, offline, no battery, no tariff and more

102

automated checks of every scenario on every screen, 0 problems

WCAG 2.1 AA violations (axe) across 28 screen checks

How we'll know it works

Targets to set with the team for launch, not results.

Owners who finish setup without contacting support
QR scan and a clear offline path should remove most setup calls
80%80%
Time from a panel fault to owner or installer action
Today a weak panel can go unnoticed for weeks
Under 24 hoursUnder 24 hours
Support requests per 100 systems
Setup and “is this normal?” are the usual questions
−30%−30%
Issues resolved remotely by installers
Restart and firmware from the phone save a truck roll
1 in 21 in 2
Owners who check at least weekly
A healthy app is checked, not stared at, and monitoring keeps the warranty valid
60%60%

Key takeaways

Three things this project taught me.

01
An answer beats a gauge
The data was always there. Putting one sentence above it, “All 24 panels producing, updated 2 min ago”, did more than any chart.
02
Silence is a feature
Writing down when not to alert, night and clouds, mattered as much as the alerts themselves. Trust comes from not crying wolf.
03
One model, two lenses
Owners and installers see the same roof. Owners get meaning, installers get mechanics, and a report from one lands tagged in the other's feed.

Try it yourself

Switch between homeowner and installer in the live prototype, try any scenario, or read the design system.

Live demo Design system

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