I just installed Sense and it’s beginning its learning process. So far so good.
What happens in the case of an ISP outage? Can the sense app still connect to the monitor via wifi to provide instantaneous power usage readings, etc. or does it require the cloud connection for anything to work? How long can the monitor store data while the Internet connection is out?
I have two ISPs, but have configured my network to only allow the Sense monitor to connect via my primary ISP, since the secondary has a data cap and the device seems to chew through a decent amount of data according to the docs.
Having had a longish outage with Sense installed, I can answer this.
The device buffers a lot of data (8 hrs) if it can’t upload it - leading to thoughts of a nice function for satellite users to maximize off-peak uploads.
However following the outage, which was cumulatively several hours one day, but less than 8, it didn’t handle populating Always On properly - most of the day’s Always On ended up in Other. Feedback was provided at the time to the support team.
Yes, all server-side computation apparently, apart from some basic stuff in the box,
However I would have expected it to have sorted itself out after the web connection was good again, but that day is still showing with almost nil “Always On”, so a software defect, but not a priority in my book
I’ve had a couple of outages lately, in the three hour time frame, and the data hasn’t repopulated once it comes back. Is it supposed to? I wish it would as I’m trying to track my heating costs during this cold snap.
As long as you don’t shut off power to the sense unit, it should still have up to 8hrs of data stored. Resetting the router lets it reconnect and send that data to the cloud.
There’s no chance it lost power during the outages?
No. I have crappy internet, but in two of the cases, I was online at the time. I did bump the router in one instance and it came back on, but the data hasn’t been restored. I sent a note to support.
A few months ago I figured out that if I was working on my computer - casting music to a nearby Google home in particular - it would shut down data transmission from the Sense device. I can get away with using the computer now, just no casting from it.
Any chance you were doing heavy computing at the time, or otherwise chewing up bandwidth?
We do have heavy use at times, but out of three outages, two were without anything competing for bandwidth. I’ll watch for that though and test it if I get the chance. Thanks~
We know the internal sampling rate, but I couldn’t find a reference to what the actual upstream bandwidth usage is in normal mode (i.e. not trying to catch up from an outage). That would be helpful as more of us add always-on smart devices continually pushing data upstream (Nest Cams, for instance)
Becky,
Is your data that was not restored perhaps misallocated to “Other” and “usage” still correct or if you look at the day in question is there a dip in total usage? I had the former after something like 5 or 6 hours total outage spread over a day.
I guess you are judging an interruption in data from Sense to the server by delays in the live display on one of the apps. We may need BenAtSense to help us out here, because this could either be from up or down congestion - no doubt with that 8 hour buffer they have set QoS so Sense has minimal impact on other stuff.
Thanks Becky, so if your normal live data display is not always lagging considerably (implying the buffer is already occupied managing through your internet bandwith) that’s a buffer function that needs some work.
I’ve now joined the data outage club, a clear gap of 3 hours or so in the early hours today in all data when I am certain there was no internet outage and my network had plenty of spare capacity. I’ve waited all day for it to catch up using the data in the 8 hr buffer, but that has not happened.
I’ve sent a note to my support contact and await their response.
That gap could perhaps be my Wifi LAN, which I’ll address, but that doesn’t explain why the buffer did not fill the gap subsequently.
I’ve been talking to support and they thought my upload speed was so bad that the buffer filled before it caught up. it’s true, my internet has been sucking over the holiday.
