How does sense do detecting mini-split/cold climate/air source heat pumps? Does anyone have these that sense has detected? I’m looking to install some of these next year as backup heat for my house and am hoping I can track their usage with sense.
Sense has detected my fridge and freezer which are both heat pumps. It has detected parts of my dryer which has another heat pump in it. I can’t tell if sense has detected the heat pump portion or something else.
How about hot water heat pumps? I’m also hoping to get one of these next year.
My guess is that some heat pumps are fairly tricky to recognize, especially the mini-splits because they variable outputs and an inside and outside unit that will use electricity differently.
Sense found my Rheem 4T heat pump almost immediately when running in heating mode, but not cooling mode (which is strange as its run in cooling mode much more than heat). As long as the aux heat strips dont come on (which only occurs if I adjust the thermostat more than about 3-4 degrees from current setpoint as the system then rushes to hit the target), it seems to nail it well. If the heat strips do come on, it hasnt ID’ed them yet.
It also seems to have attributed the variable speed indoor fan to the system as well (and did so without me manually merging it to the condensing section).
I have a Fujitsu Halcyon mini-split system, and Sense hasn’t had any luck detecting any of the components. There are 4 semi-independent variable speed motors (two fans for the internal units, and a fan and compressor outside), so I can understand that they would be difficult to profile. At the same time, the curves would be pretty obvious to spot if you were looking for them.
It’s been just short of three months since installing my Sense monitor. 16 devices have been detected (yay!) but neither of two my heat pumps: Mitsubishi Mr. Slim MSZ-GE15NA and MSZ-FE12NA. At this time of year we tend to run them continuously for heat so it’s possible they’ve been shunted into the “Always On” category. Hopefully that will get fixed at some point since “Always On” (30%) and “Other” (40%) combined still account for the bulk of our power usage at 70%.
It took Sense almost a half year to detect our Climate Master heat pump. But it does detect it fairly reliably now, even though it continues to miss the corresponding pump on the deep geothermal well.
It found our Trane within a couple of weeks, but didn’t seem to see the Aux Heat as a part of the system (which is a power hog of course). After determining when that ‘Heat’ element was running, and that was the Aux, I combined them. Works great now
I have a GE 50 Hybrid (heat pump) water heater. After 1 month sense found it and it is accurately tracking it. Sense has basically found everything but my dishwasher, washing machine and my Mitsubishi Hyper Heat Ductless Heat Pump (DHP). I am thinking that because my DHP is variable speed it may have trouble finding it. My house is pretty quiet electronic signature wise so most all other appliances/loads have been found. Has anyone had a DHP, that is variable speed, found by Sense?
Sense found my the condenser portion of my Mits ductless minisplits over the summer when they were in AC mode. I have a 3-ton unit (which is the new variable speed technology), with 3x wall units off of it. Sense did not find any of the fans in the wall units however. I think i got lucky by this being an AC/HP combo setup in that it could find it in the summer.
Also to note that since this is really secondary/backup heat for the winter, it sits mostly idle at the moment (I keep the breaker on for it anyways). Sense even found what looks like a maintenance cycle mode for it, i named it “AC Standby”. It’s low power and cycles for about 1/2hr, except for when it’s below freezing outside, then at the end of the cycle, it ramps up power considerably fo a few mins. I think that might be a defroster component, on top of whatever else it’s doing on the regular.
This is the only variable speed device Sense has reliably IDed for me. My LG washer/dryer are still a mess. Dishwasher I’ve never seen anything for.
Sense just reported finding my Mitsubishi Mini Split yesterday.
I don’t know what components it is including but the load ranges from 136W to 350+ w
That would make sense because this unit has variable speed motors.
I believe it has some heaters someplace as this is one of the few units that will make heat down to 13 below zero.
Looks like it took 3 months to find this much and report it.
Sense found my Daikin SmartSource 2-Stage Horizontal Water Source Heat Pump after four months. This was very impressive and badly needed. Geothermal 2 stage would be listed in the uncommon category. 2 stage made it tricky to find. It was found after reporting to support an accurate cycle of on-off time. It still has not found the supporting pumps but am thrilled that it found the water furnace.
Our system consists of Climate Master water to water geothermal heat pump, 500’ standing column well with Franklin Electric constant pressure pump (which Sense engineers tell me is “extremely noisy” and is preventing Sense from working properly for the rest of my home) for both domestic water and geothermal, domestic hot water circulator pump, multiple zone radiant (with circulator) for heating, and Unico miniduct (with pump circulator) and blower for cooling. Of all that, only the Climate Master is detected, and not totally reliably.
My Daikin 2 Stage Water Source is a horizontal loop field consisting of four loops of over 4000’ of 3/4" hdpe pipe. It takes two pumps to move the glycol through the system. The pumps are on a different circuit and amount to around 300 watts total. If it finds the heat pump, I would think it could be qued to look for the pumps.
I have over 30 components discovered with a pretty consistent reporting. Sense doesn’t recognize most of our LED lights unless they are grouped together. Doesn’t know our EVSE for our Chevy Volt, and doesn’t know our pulsing Wolf induction stove top, nor our LED TV. The EVSE is the big one. The rest are minor usage. The other 30 components are reporting with remarkable consistency including the 2 second ignition of the gas burners on the gas stove top and the appliance light from opening of the fridge door for seconds.
Sense definitely will find them. I had an issue where it couldn’t tell that the ‘emergency heat’ (the coils) were a part of the device - as, of course, they run much less often. So, after determining they were being separately detected, I was able to combine them, and it’s been working fine since - both for heating and cooling.
I have two mini-splits and after 3 months just one of them is partially found. A new motor device was detected and looking at the power and days active it must be one of my mini-splits but looks like just the fan inside on the wall and not the outside compressor unit. With my “Always on” bubble about 890watts and my “Other” bubble always around 1200watts I have around 2000watts unidentified for about a year now. Maybe someday Sense will have enough data to identify what makes up my 2000watts but for now just knowing total power being used is kind of good. Hopefully, in the second year of my Sense box running, it will find more devices.
and has been completely unable to identify the heat. Therefore I would say not well.