I agree in principle. In practice I think one of the biggest obstacles for a non-technical user is dealing with all this theory. I think its our job to put all that under the hood (bonnet?) and just let them turn the key…
Imagine if you had to decide the bore/stroke and compression ratios to buy a car? Of course with that analogy, the most popular power monitors would have the “power” to handle 500 amps.
The big problem is, we have to cater for the highly technical, the completely non-technical, and everyone in between.
You can minimise, but never remove, every technical ‘problem’. Making something ‘plug-and-play’ makes it easy for the non-technical, but limiting and frustrating for the skilled.
Reminds me of what you’ve said (no doubt, many times) before, Robert, about “being all things to all men.”
And we know what happens there.
Mr. Aesop describes it well in the tale of the Man, the Boy and the Donkey.
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In the ham radio world, multi band antennas are always a “compromise” because one size simply does not fit all.
I do have to take my hat off to Robert and others though for the time that they take in supporting the community!
Regards
Dave
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Having harmonicaly related bands (HF) helps though. 
73 OM
KR6K
Have the new boards and “customized” a sample case. Here’s what it looks like.
Working great. Have a jig that cuts the input jack holes pretty clean and accurate, but I hacked it up putting in the USB, AC and led holes on the end. That will all be cnc machined once I verify the dimensions and turn around a sample with the enclosure vendor. Also need a couple of tweaks on the board so one more iteration (a week).
The enclosure vendor also will color inkjet print the top, so need to get some graphics made up. Will also be able to print the input channel numbers along the edge of the top.
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It looks great.
that’s looking really professional bob - nice one!
Any plans to do an ethernet version? 
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ESP8266 doesn’t have an ethernet capability. Don’t know why ethernet
would be preferred except maybe for security. In any event, if you have
a wired LAN connection nearby, there are plenty of plug-in access point
appliances that could be used to bridge the WiFi to the LAN. They range
in cost from $30 - $40. If security is an issue, the AP could be used
only for the IoTaWatt(s).
For me its primarily about connectivity. Where the IoTaWatt would go has poor wifi, but it has an ethernet socket
Hence for me ethernet would be ideal
I’ll have a look around for an esp8266 ethernet bridge.
You don’t need anything ESP8266 specific. All you would need is a
wireless access point device. There are a ton of them out there. They
just plug into a wall socket. You connect your LAN wire and it provides
a wireless access point (AP). Then you just connect the IoTaWatt as
usual to the SSID that you configured on the access point. You can get
these things for $20 if you look around. Can get one from Amazon for
$30-$40.
To me it makes no sense to build different pieces of hardware to
accommodate connectivity variations when there are cheap adapters
available. To the consumer, the device is worth more if it can be
adapter to changes in network topography. Consider if you bought a
device that is ethernet only and then needed to use it someplace else,
or the ethernet goes away in lieu of WiFi. It makes more sense to build
a single device in quantity, make it available at a commodity price, and
use other commodity devices to adapt to various local needs.
A similar argument goes to supporting more or less channels than the 15
on this device. Make them inexpensive and if someone needs more than 15
channels, use two.
If @david filled in his country in his profile, I’d know whether the 170 or so WAPs listed here were relevant to him or not. 
[Disclaimer - I’ve used them as a supplier, no other connection.]
@Robert.Wall in the UK !
@overeasy I’ve already got 3 dotted around the house - but where the emon-tx is still doesn’t have a great signal.
I also prefer wires
I’ll have a look & play with
https://github.com/Cicero-MF/esp_enc28j60
which gives an ethernet connection to the ESP8266 which for a fiver seems OK to me.
Then you get both wireless and ethernet.
It might only be 10baseT rather than 100 but hey ho…
You must have a big house.
I have a friend who lives in a Welsh longhouse. The house is about 25 m long, 3.5 m wide and has very thick slate walls. He has 1 wireless router and 2 WAPs, one in each “compartment” formed by the 2 ft thick dividing walls.
Thick walls are a pain for wifi.
Ethernet cables don’t mind the walls - they literally go through them
hence I have ethernet across the house as it works well.
and an interest in IotaWatt using ethernet
Interesting site. Thanks for the info. This appears to be an SPI interface to an ethernet chip. Aside from being a lot of work for what I don’t feel will be of much utility to most folks, there are some technical issues beyond the cost of the extra hardware.
IoTaWatt has absolutely no remaining output pins, and although I make extensive use of SPI so CLK, MiSo and MoSi are available, this would require at least two more pins for CS and INT. Even if I had a couple of extra pins, I’d have to think hard about using them for ethernet rather than some of the other functionality that could be enabled.
But have at it, the source is on GitHub.
Well it was worth a try!
but yes I can imagine the lack of pins.
I’ll try it when the iotaWatt comes out and see if the signal gets through the walls
Cannot wait now!
The new enclosure and PCB’s are looking really nice!! wow!
There is also an Ethernet feather wing: Adafruit Ethernet FeatherWing : ID 3201 : $19.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits. Although this is absolutely not a plug and play option, you would need to make modifications to the firmware to support Ethernet and that is assuming there are no pin conflicts. So unless you absolutely need Ethernet to the device, adding an Access Point is probably easier.