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Would a point-of-use booster actually save energy?
A distant fixture can take a while to get hot, but raising the central water-heater setpoint means hotter water throughout the plumbing system. A point-of-use electric booster adds another heater and may have its own standby losses; I’m not sure whether it would shorten the wait or only affect the water temperature once it arrives.
How do you compare the energy use of a local booster with the extra heat loss from a higher central setpoint? I’d also want to distinguish cooled water sitting in a long pipe from a central heater that’s struggling to keep up; those seem like different problems. What temperature controls and scald protection should be considered before adding a booster or changing the main setpoint?
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A point-of-use booster generally cannot eliminate the initial wait: it can only heat the water after it reaches the fixture, so the cooled water still has to be displaced from the long pipe. If hot water arrives and then stays steady, that pattern is more consistent with pipe cooling than a heater failing to keep up. If it fades during sustained use, recovery or capacity may be worth investigating instead; those patterns help frame the issue but don’t diagnose it on their own.
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