@RyanAtSense I bought several HS110s in part with the hope of better tracking some of my Always On devices (around 300W). I hooked several up to power strips that contain a good number of the devices that always trickle some power (Home Theater, computer closet, an always on iMac, etc.). I can observe through the bubbles that these newly observed devices always use about 200W, and thus make up about 2/3 of my Always On (300W).
My expectation was that with all these new bubbles directly showing the power consumed by these always on devices, that the “Always On” bubble would be reduced accordingly and only show the remaining 100W of always on equipment that is not directly identified in its own bubble. But that’s not what happened. My Always On bubble stayed the same (around 300W), and these other devices also show up as bubbles that are shown to always be consuming about 200W. Thus, it seems the “Always On” is being double-counted. It’s been this way for several days.
This creates the absurd situation where if you add up the wattage in the bubbles (Always On 300W, other bubbles at about 270W), the total wattage in the bubbles is about 570W, while the TOTAL power consumption on the mains shows as only 373W. (Screenshot attached.) Shouldn’t the bubbles wattage (added up) roughly equal the total consumption on the mains? This difference is entirely explained by the always on being double counted within the Always On bubble, as well as all the HS110 bubbles that are showing their separate always on amounts.
Yes. I set up the “What’s plugged in?” for all of them. For most, they contained no previously detected devices, so I chose “Power Strip” only for what’s plugged in. For two of them (Home Theater and MBR TV) I checked Power Strip as well as a TV that had been previously identified (as these include the TV on the power strip that is plugged into the HS110).
You didn’t follow the directions exactly, because the UI lets you “color outside the box”. I think only ONE of the options is allowed - power strip OR detected device - not a hybrid of both.
You can specify ONE of three different options on the “What’s plugged in?” screen
Assign the smart plug to an already detected device. This merges smart plug data with identified device.
Assign the smart plug to a new device and specify what that device is. This treats the smart plug as an individual device.
Assign to a power strip that has many different devices on it. This treats the smart plug as as a composite device.
@kevin1 I can see that I did not choose one of the three options specified in the “What’s plugged in?” instructions (already detected device, new device, or power strip), but rather a hybrid of both (power strip and already detected TV, since the TV is plugged into the power strip).
@RyanAtSense What is the proper way to fill out the “What’s plugged in?” for an HS110 that has a power strip plugged into it, with a previously detected TV plugged into the power strip (along with other electronics)? I assumed choosing both Power Strip, as well as the previously detected TV was correct, and it would then “merge” the existing device (the TV) with the smart plug data. If I was not to select both options, then why would the Sense app allow selecting both options? (That would be poor UI.)
Regardless, I don’t think this is the cause of the double-counting going on here, as the TVs were not turned on. With the TVs not turned on, they are not drawing any (significant) energy, so there’s nothing to double-count. Not even counting the two bubbles with the TV, there’s clearly something still amiss here – why would these bubbles add up to more than the total from the mains and why would the “Always On” bubble not shrink AT ALL when separately accounting for much of my “always on” energy usage in the separate HS110 bubbles?
I have the same issue on my end. I added 3 new HS110 plugs yesterday on pretty much most of my always on devices (smart Home hubs routers etc as well as my office equipment and home theater stuff). All of them set to powerstrip and none of the devices plugged into these powerstrips were previously detected. They all do about 30-40 Watts in draw, but my Always On number has not come down at all which it should have.
I’ll repost a graph I did the other day of hourly Always On vs. hourly consumption of all my smart plugs. Most of the 11 HS110s were placed on “new” devices and outlet strips that had not been previously detected by Sense, but 2 were added to existing identified devices (Furnace Up and Toto). My Always on dropped for virtually all smartplug additions though Sense seemed to wait until after midnight to do the updates (expected due to the nature of Always On). One device, my 45W hot water circulator did not drop Always On at all since its timer is off from 1AM to 6AM (also expected). It would be worthwhile looking at similar graphs for Always On and your smartplugs…
Added a significant number of TP-Link sensors on previously unrecognized devices with essentially no change in always on…although other has declined. Are you sure those watts weren’t buried in Other?
I’ll add another comment for someone adding a HS110 and the Always on not adjusting.
I added a Single HS110 to my IT rack. The HS110 reports the rack takes roughly 130w. My always has been around 245w. Its been three days since the HS110 was installed and the Always on has not gone down. Its actually gone up, but thats due to more people in the house (holidays).
While I’ve seen comments from Ryan about making sure the SmartSwitch is set up correctly, have we actually heard if Is it expected behavior for the Always on to go down? While it makes sense that it should because now we can name the device, has the Sense team actually adjusted the Always On algorithm to look at Smart Plug data and do the math?
Essentially as far as I can wrap my head around it, the Always On Algorithm now has to look at smart plugs and calculate a separate always on for each smart plug. Then look at the Always on based on the CT clamps of the whole house and the old algorithm, and then subtract the Always on calculated for each smart plug from the “whole house” always on.
Does that make sense? Now at the same time, as @kevin1’s graphs show, his always on has been reduced, so something is making the adjustment, but since it is not consistent person to person, I wonder if it has actually been addressed correctly in software.
Then there is the question of what we expect from Always on now that we have the ability to identify some of it. I’ll start a new thread.
I’m looking into the last question with help from the team, but to answer the first:
For a power strip device, you actually should check off any previously detected devices from the list below. Historical data for those devices will be merged with the smart plug/power strip composite device. I’ll make this clearer in the release notes and help articles.
I am experiencing the same thing. I added three HS110’s. One for my TV power strip, one for my CCTV unit, and one for my computer room power strip. These three smart plugs should have lowered my always on from 400w down to 250w but there has been no change in two days so it is now double counting these three plugs. I have them all setup as power strips and didn’t associate any existing devices to them. I was hoping within 24 hours my always on number was going to be corrected but no luck. I was trying to lower the always on number so I really haven’t accomplished anything. I submitted a ticket so I am hoping someone will look into this. I am thinking it is an algorithm issue with these new smart plugs.
Here is my screenshot of the three HS110’s with all devices powered down so those are the always on numbers for each plug. Totaling 162w, it should lower my always on down to roughly 231w. I turned all my lights off, and all three smart plugs and my usage was 250w so that verifies my always on should be around the 230-250w.
I think you are thinking too simplistically. Always On is a 24 hour calculation, so even if you do something now, the results may not show up until much later. Plus it might not respond to smartplugs that are fully off (0W). Sense is sill working on tuning with smartplugs and @RyanAtSense is likely to give a better view into the actual calculations, so we have a better idea of what to expect.
A lot of users are using the TP-link HS110 . Would this also apply to the Wemo insight plug? I have seen my ALWAYS on growing, and would like a better way to see what is Always on. I have several WEMO plugs around and would like to try those instead of the HS110 .
@RyanAtSense Has something changed over the last couple days in how Always On is computed? My Always On has shrunk dramatically. As detailed in my initial post that started this thread, it was 300-350W or so (before and after adding a bunch of HS-110s to power strips), and appeared to be double-counting about 200W of always-on HS-110 bubbles. It remained this way for a couple weeks. Now, just in the last day or so, Always On is showing as 133W (a dramatic 200W decrease), which is about what I expected to happen when I installed the multiple HS-110s, as it no longer appears to be double-counting what is on the HS-110s. This transformation happened about the same time as Sense identified the “Idle” state of many of my HS-110s.
One of the particular challenges that we’re facing (and working hard to solve) is correlating the usage of the smart plug with the correct leg. Self-reports of this info have proven to be less than accurate, so we’re relying on ML to make those correlations at the moment. Once those correlations are made, your Always On (which calculates per leg) should accurately reflect your smart plug devices. This is not ideal however and can take longer than expected.
It sounds like yours got correctly correlated.
I’m going to close this thread in favor of the bigger one. Please make all comments there.
