Ada was three days from signing a lease in a new part of town when the landlord said the line she’d been waiting to hear: “NEPA is very stable here, don’t worry.”
She smiled and said thank you. Inside, she was doing the math on how many times she’d heard that exact sentence before moving into her last apartment, the one where the inverter became a second rent payment.
She had already asked the neighbors, or tried to. One said the light was “not bad,” another said “it varies,” and a third laughed.
None of that told her anything she could plan around. She needed a number from people with no reason to flatter the area.
That’s the gap Arandmi is built to close.
Instead of relying on a landlord’s word or a five-minute chat with whoever happens to be outside, you can look up what residents of that exact neighborhood have been reporting about power and internet before you commit to anything.
Search the area before you sign anything
The process is simple enough to do while you’re still standing in the compound. On the homepage, you’ll find a plain search bar, not a dropdown menu you have to scroll through.
You can search for your area by typing the neighborhood name directly, the way you’d type it into any search box.
If the area has been reviewed, you’ll get a result laid out something like this: “Nvuigwe, Woji,” a score such as “4.8 out of 5,” and a line underneath showing how many people rated it, say “4 reviews.”
Next to that sits a tag like “Early signal · 4 of 25 reviews,” along with links to read what people said or add a rating of your own.
That score itself is really two scores folded into one: Arandmi averages what residents report about power supply and what they report about internet quality separately, then combines those two averages into the overall number you see.
The tag matters as much as the score. It tells you how much weight to put on the number itself, which is the part people tend to skip past.
What if the area barely has any reviews, or none at all
Plenty of areas on Arandmi are still building up a history. Some show a couple of reviews with an “Early signal” tag, and some, like a newer area like Lekki Phase 1, currently show no reviews at all and are marked “Not yet rated.”
That’s not a flaw in the area; it means not enough residents have submitted reports yet, since Arandmi only calls an average “reliable” once an area has 25 or more reviews.
If that’s what you find, don’t treat the absence of data as either a good or bad sign. Treat it as early, not settled. A handful of reviews can still be useful context, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you lean on for a decision this size.
This is where it helps to combine what Arandmi shows with what you can observe yourself. Visit at different times of day if you can.
Ask the people actually living on that street, not just the agent showing you the property, and ask specific questions like how many hours of light they got yesterday rather than vague ones like whether it’s “fine.”
You can also check which NERC band covers the feeder line serving the area, since that gives you a rough sense of expected supply hours and tariff, separate from what residents report on Arandmi.
Want to understand the score itself
If you’re the type who wants to know what’s actually happening behind that single number before you trust it, it’s worth reading about how those scores are actually calculated.
It walks through the full method in more depth than makes sense to repeat here.
It also helps to understand what ‘Early Signal’ and ‘Reliable’ actually mean before you start comparing areas side by side, since a 4.8 built on 4 reviews and a 4.1 built on 40 reviews are telling you very different things, even though one number looks higher.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many reviews does an area need before I can trust the score?
Arandmi marks an area’s average as “reliable” once it has 25 or more reviews. Below that threshold, you’ll see a tag like “Early signal ·
X of 25 reviews,” with X being the current count. It’s not that the score is wrong, just that it’s based on fewer reports.
Does Arandmi combine power and internet into one score, or keep them separate?
Both. Arandmi averages what residents report about power supply and what they report about internet quality as two separate figures, purely from resident submissions, and then combines those two averages into the single overall score you see listed for the area.
What should I do if the area I’m checking has no reviews yet?
Treat it as early, not settled, the same guidance Arandmi gives for any lightly reviewed area.
Areas like Lekki Phase 1 currently show “Not yet rated” simply because Arandmi is still expanding across neighborhoods, so pair that gap with your own visit or questions to people already living there.