With the rise of “smart home” technology, there’s obviously been a boom in connected devices and a surge to make anything and everything “smart.” In some cases (e.g., lights, thermostats), it makes sense and the convenience is real.

In other (far too many) cases, it’s just a marketing gimmick with no real benefit or purpose. “Smart” coffeemakers? Don’t most coffeemakers already have programmable timers? In fact, I can’t think of anything in the kitchen that needs to be “smart,” connected to the cloud, and controllable from your phone. You really should be supervising all those appliances that either get hot or have slicey-dicey bits.

So when I first saw this smart oil gauge from Connected Consumer Fuel, I was dubious.

However, I recently moved to a house with oil heat (as a backup supply for one of my heat pump compressors) and was basically clueless about how it all works. After one winter with oil heat, I can honestly say that I’m conflicted. Yeah, I’m burning a nonrenewable fossil fuel and feel incredibly guilty about that. But when it’s 20 degrees outside? Oh but it’s incredibly toasty and warms up the house in matter of minutes.

So in an effort to reduce the amount of oil I’m actually burning through (to save the Earth and my wallet), I went in search of something that would help me better monitor my oil usage and levels.

Which led me to this nifty little device.

I have a 275-gallon tank located underneath the deck off the back of my house. It’s not incredibly difficult to access, but it is a pain.

And the “traditional” (i.e., only) way to see how much oil is left in the tank is to crouch down under the deck and take a look at the little bubble gauge connected to the tank. Again, it’s not incredibly difficult to do, but when it’s below zero, there’s snow on the ground, and the heat is running fairly constantly?

Yeah, it’s certainly a “first world problem,” but it’s still not a fun chore to do every day or so to make sure you don’t run out of oil.

Showing the 1/4 tank I had left over from last winter.

So what does the smart oil gauge do?

Glad you asked.

In a nutshell, it connects to the top of your tank and measures how much oil you have in the tank. Then you can use an app on your mobile device (or ask Alexa) to check how much oil you have from the comfort (and warmth) of your home. Or anywhere in the world for that matter.

If that’s all it did, it’d certainly be a convenience, but I’m not sure it’d be worth the price. Thankfully, that’s not all it does.

Data geeks will get a thrill at the graphs and numbers the app throws at you. At a glance, you can see how much oil you’re using on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You can identify peak times of usage, and based on your usage, the app can estimate how many days you have until it’s time to fill up the tank again.

Even non-data geeks like me will find this gauge to be extremely valuable. In short, those graphs and that information the app shows? It’s exactly what I was looking for. It helps me not only keep an eye on the oil and know how much we’re burning but also how (and when) we can regulate our usage.

How do you set it up?

Connecting the gauge to your tank is a cinch. If you’ve got an unused 2″ NPT opening on the tank, it simply screws in to that.

Voila!

Connecting the gauge to your home Wi-Fi is a bit trickier, or at least it was in my experience. The gauge only connects to a 2.4 GHz signal, so if you have a dual band router (and you can’t manually switch between the two), you might have to endure a lot of error messages. I sure did.

Eventually, I got it to connect, and once it did, everything else was as smooth a silk. The app walks you through it all and make the process fairly idiot proof.

Inside the gauge is the tiny beating heart of the whole operation.

How does it work? And is it accurate?

The bottom of the gauge has an ultrasonic sensor that measures and reports oil level to the nearest tenth of a gallon. While this is fairly precise, that also means it picks up variances due to temperature fluctuations. So even though the heat might not be running, the gauge (and the app) will report oil level changes from normal air temperature changes during the day or if the tank gets direct sunlight (and warms up the oil inside).

The ultrasonic sensor on the bottom of the gauge

For the most part, though, these fluctuations are minor and tend to “level out” over time. It’s easy to see they’re not actually representative of oil usage from running the heat.

There is one significant limit of the smart oil gauge, though.

When you set up your account in the app and select all your settings, you’ll see that the gauge works with a variety of tank sizes and types. In talking to the folks at Connected Consumer Fuel, they told me that their “least favorite” configuration is exactly what I have: a horizontally mounted tank.

Tank size options on the left; my settings on the right

Why is that?

Well, when a horizontal tank is full, the oil ends up being so close to the sensor (just a couple inches) that it can’t get a super precise reading. When I had my tank filled at the beginning of this season, it went up to 263 gallons. (I physically checked the level with the company that delivers my oil.)

The Smart Oil app, however, read just a bit over 195 gallons. Again, the folks at Connected Consumer Fuel claim that the gauge isn’t super reliable on my tank type at levels over 200 gallons.

Remember that bubble gauge on my tank that was measuring 1/4 tank? (Scroll up if you don’t.) The app was spot on with that measurement. But when I filled up the tank (and the bubble went all the way to the top)… not so much.

Accurate 1/4 tank reading on left; not-so-accurate full tank reading on right

So, when full, the gauge isn’t giving me an accurate reading. But for a majority of the tank (at 200 gallons and below), it is. And when it’s nearing empty, when I need it the most, I’m getting a true reading.

Anything else?

In the app, you can also choose to receive notifications – because, let’s face it, you’re not going to remember to check this thing every day. I’m set to get text notifications when the level reaches 1/4 tank and when it’s reading “abnormally high” usage.

You can also get emails for a non-reporting sensor, low battery, 1/2 tank, 1/3 tank, 1/8 tank, and when the tank gets filled up.

(There’s also an Alexa integration, but all it really does – when it works – is report your current level. I connected it to see how it works and haven’t used it since.)

So even though you might be tempted to check the app and analyze the graphs every day when it’s still a new toy, the smart oil gauge is really designed to be an “affix it and forget it” type of device.

It was exactly what I was looking for, and it’s doing its job well. It’s not perfect, but nothing truly is.

If you’re looking to save money, save the Earth, or if you have an oil tank that’s a pain to access and you’re just looking to reduce the number of times you have to go inspect it during the bone-chilling winter months, this little gadget is a charm.