Hydro One Mobile vs Defender Empower
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hydro One Mobile
Manage your electricity service and stay informed about power outages. View your bills, account balance, and usage details. Access a real-time outage map with estimated restoration times and affected customer numbers.
- View bills and account balance
- Sign up for paperless billing
- Sign up for SMS notifications
- View usage details
- Real-time power outage map
- Outage restoration estimates
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We work hard to ensure that Hydro One customers have access to the information they need when they need it. The NEW Hydro One mobile application makes it easy for customers to manage their Hydro One service and get the latest information about power outages in your area. NEW – Customers can now access myAccount self-service within the app! Enabling Hydro One customers to: • View their bill and account balance • Sign up for paperless billing • Sign up for SMS notifications • View ‘time of use’ usage details and more! Power Outage Map Our power outage map lets you know if there is a power outage at home or the cottage. It is updated every 10 minutes with detailed outage information, including: • Number of customers affected • Estimated restoration time • Cause of the outage (if known) • Repair crew status The Outage Maps use colour-coded symbols to display the number of customers without service and their locations. Hydro One recognizes that this is crucial information for our customers. Now you can access it on the go.
Defender Empower
Stay connected with your home or business from anywhere. This app allows you to view live feeds, review recorded footage, and receive instant motion detection alerts. You can also easily share important clips and customize recording schedules.
- Live video streaming
- Recorded footage playback
- Motion detection alerts
- Footage sharing
- Customizable recording schedules
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Join the community of families and businesses that choose Defender to stay connected, anywhere, anytime. With the Defender Empower App: - LIVE: Check-in on what’s happening, anytime - PLAYBACK: Easily watch recorded footage - NOTIFICATIONS: Receive instant alerts when motion is detected - SHARE: Save and share footage, whether it’s funny or suspicious - SCHEDULE: Customize your recording schedule to fit your lifestyle and needs
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Defender Empower at 4.6 against Hydro One Mobile's 3.0. Defender Empower also leads on review sentiment (40% vs 11%) and ratings volume (1.8K vs 4). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Defender Empower holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Defender Empower has 1.8K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 11% of Hydro One Mobile's written reviews are positive against 40% of Defender Empower's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hydro One Mobile | Defender Empower |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (4 ratings) | 4.6 (1.8K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 11.3% of reviews | 39.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 1.8K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 7 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 186 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Hydro One Incorporated | Empowerment Technologies Inc. |
Customer experience
Hydro One Mobile
Defender Empower
User reviews
Hydro One Mobile
From 4 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Useful for outage updates
- 👍 Good for checking outage status
- 👍 Provides outage information quickly
- 👍 Timely outage information refresh
- 👍 Good for reporting outages
Room to improve
- 👎 App is a website redirect
- 👎 Requires login for basic info
- 👎 Slow on iPad login
- 👎 Unusable, essentially mobile website
- 👎 Broken on every step
Defender Empower
From 1.8K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great camera quality
- 🔒 Reliable security system
- 👍 Easy to set up and use
- 👍 Useful app features
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent app crashes
- 🔋 Battery life issues
- 👎 Poor customer service
- 👎 Unreliable camera connectivity
- 👎 Difficult to navigate app
Bugs and requests
Hydro One Mobile
Reported bugs
21 issues- Login screen freezes
- In-app messages show 'unsupported browser'
- View bill function stopped working
- Login issues on iPad
- Blank page on login
Show 16 moreShow fewer
- Stuck spinning after login
- App keeps notifying an update is available when none exists
- Fails to get data from Hydro One
- Reporting outages gives an error
- Map shows almost no outages
- Signs out every time you try to go back to the main menu
- Consistently have trouble logging in
- Poor connectivity
- Can never log in anymore, takes forever
- Impossible to log in
- App does not login, fails registration, password change
- Extremely slow when it does work
- Loading account, nothing shows up
- Login is glitchy
- Clicking done to go back logs you out
- Auto logs the user out when clicking 'done' after viewing the current bill in PDF format
Requested features
15 requests- Invest in a proper app focused on usage and billing
- Add outage notifications
- Add a widget for power status
- Add face recognition for logging in
- Add account access and user-friendly displays
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- Add real-time updates
- Add billing support integration
- Add personal usage information
- Add outage alerts/notifications
- Add usage details
- Allow users to remain signed in
- Allow viewing usage & bills without re-entering info
- Add option to print bill
- Add face recognition or thumb print login
- Fix auto-logout when viewing PDF
Defender Empower
Reported bugs
4 issues- Cameras randomly going offline
- App not showing all camera feeds
- Playback not working as expected
- Notifications not triggering consistently
Requested features
4 requests- Add two-way audio capability
- Improve playback and recording functionality
- Provide PC/desktop app support
- Enhance motion detection and alerts
In-app purchases
Hydro One Mobile
No in-app purchases
Defender Empower
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Hydro One Mobile free?
Is Defender Empower free?
Which has better reviews, Hydro One Mobile or Defender Empower?
Do Hydro One Mobile or Defender Empower have ads?
Which is updated more often, Hydro One Mobile or Defender Empower?
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