{"id":385802,"date":"2021-02-10T13:30:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T11:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=385802"},"modified":"2021-03-15T10:08:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T08:08:18","slug":"eskomsepush-hits-2-million-users-amid-confusing-load-shedding-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/385802-eskomsepush-hits-2-million-users-amid-confusing-load-shedding-changes.html","title":{"rendered":"EskomSePush hits 2 million users amid confusing load-shedding changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Popular load-shedding app EskomSePush now has over 2.2 million users, a figure boosted by multiple bouts of load-shedding in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

The free smartphone app – which is available for Android and iOS users – was first launched back in 2015 by co-creators Dan Wells and Herman Maritz.<\/p>\n

The tool holds a database of load-shedding schedules from municipalities, making it easier for South Africans to be notified of when load-shedding will hit certain areas they select.<\/p>\n

According to Maritz, there were around 1.59 million current installs of EskomSePush from the Google Play Store, while all-time installs from the Apple App store stood at just under 760,000.<\/p>\n

The app has seen sharp growth since the start of 2021, with 120,000 new unique Android users and 20,000 additional Apple users.<\/p>\n

Maritz shared the Google Analytics graph below, which showed the number of active users on EskomSePush over the last 90 days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Changing schedules<\/h3>\n

This increase came amid confusion over load-shedding schedules among Gauteng residents in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Johannesburg’s City Power changed its typical four hour load-shedding schedules to two hours without giving residents prior notice, despite the distribution utility previously stating it would not be optimal to reduce load-shedding times in this manner.<\/p>\n

This was after Eskom announced it would be reducing four-hour load-shedding slots in Stage 2 to two hours for its direct customers across Gauteng.<\/p>\n

The City of Tshwane also recently changed its load-shedding slots to run on even hours. Where a certain block would have been load shed between 13:00 and 15:30, this has been amended to 12:00 to 14:30, for example.<\/p>\n

These types of changes have caught many South Africans unawares, and EskomSePush had to make changes quickly to avoid backlash.<\/p>\n

Updating the schedules<\/h3>\n

MyBroadband asked Maritz how they manage to keep the schedules up to date, particularly with regards to how municipalities and Eskom have abruptly changed these in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

“We rely on users reporting issues with the schedule and then us sourcing them on the municipality websites,” he stated.<\/p>\n

“Dan [Wells] then spends a lot of time mapping them manually to Google Sheets and loading them to the system,” Maritz added.<\/p>\n

He said that the bigger problem in handling this was that all the municipalities had their own particular way of presenting the data.<\/p>\n

“We do wish that there was a simple template for all cities to use. We need one Excel sheet to rule them all,” he stated.<\/p>\n

New chat feature<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One of the major features EskomSePush added in the last year was chat functionality, which was necessitated by power outages outside of load-shedding.<\/p>\n

“We get many emails saying ‘Your app sucks, you did not let us know about load-shedding’. It’s usually just a local outage and no load-shedding,” Maritz said.<\/p>\n

“Now people can ask their community what’s up with the power, water, or even who is playing the trumpet [in the area],” Maritz said.<\/p>\n

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Helena gets it :) pic.twitter.com\/IYSwGhcuea<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Herman Maritz (@hermaritz) April 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n