FTW review
FTW coordinates home energy devices locally across solar, batteries, grid power and EV charging.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
FTW is a local-first home energy management system from Sourceful Energy for households coordinating solar production, batteries, grid power and EV charging. It runs on Raspberry Pi or Linux hardware and provides a local web interface, energy history and telemetry storage. Planning accounts for electricity prices, weather, photovoltaic production, household load and battery state, making it suited to technically capable homeowners who want local control rather than a hosted energy dashboard.
Its strongest fit is the integration layer. FTW supports Home Assistant, MQTT, HTTP, Modbus, WebSocket, TCP, OCPP, CalDAV and Lua, with an HTTP API and Home Assistant MQTT discovery. OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1 charger support extends the system into EV charging, while Lua-based hot-reloadable device drivers provide a path for adapting integrations. Safety controls include watchdogs, fuse limits and stale-meter protection, adding operational controls alongside energy planning. Buyers choosing FTW should expect to work within a Linux or Raspberry Pi environment and may need technical familiarity with local networking, device protocols and drivers.
FTW also stands out for coordinating several energy assets in one local system instead of focusing only on monitoring. Its forecasting inputs and local storage support planning based on changing conditions, while the web interface keeps access on the local network. The trade-off is that self-hosting remains part of the product model, and Sourceful Energy separates commercial deployment, integrations, relay access, maintenance and support from the community software. FTW suits users who value open-source control, local data handling and protocol flexibility. Those seeking a managed service with minimal infrastructure work should consider a different type of energy management product.
FTW pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Coordinates solar, batteries, grid power and EV charging in real time
- Plans around prices, weather, photovoltaic output, load and battery state
- Supports MQTT, HTTP, Modbus, OCPP, Home Assistant and Lua drivers
- Where it doesn't
- Self-hosting requires Raspberry Pi or Linux hardware
- Device integration may require technical work with drivers and protocols
- Commercial deployment, maintenance and support are separate services
FTW fact sheet, pricing and score →
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