Any suggestions/clues as to why its skipping portions of AC

So I’ve been running for a while now, and thought AC would be low hanging fruit , in fact was first device found. And living in AZ at 110+ daily now. It stopped showing half my AC use. So after reading of others experiences, I deleted the found device.

And to possibly help the learning AI, I turned off AC schedules, and have one temp set for last thre days, See attached, It seems to be skipping, in part, a specific portion of the day.

Any ideas?? I don’t want to “waste” the add on sensor for AC, since I want to add it for my pool with the variable speed pump…and crazy schedules

I’m wondering if cooling cycles (and consequently on and off signatures) look different during those times of day due to the cooling load - variable speed or multi stage AC ?

I know it is variable speed 5 ton unit, only a few yrs old.
Heres what it says;

That’s a two-stage compressor. I’m betting that the blank regions are the second stage in operation.

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Thanks, yeah, I just found the settings in my Honeywell programmable thermostat, and it said there it was configured as a two stage. (Is that what a “scroll compressor” is).

What about that second stage would do that? That’s (in the example above) the hotter part of the day it’s not detecting…

I would suggest sharing a photo from the Power Meter (not the device power meter) for the time period of missing detection that you’re referencing in the device power meter.

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Nope, two different things.

“A scroll compressor is a specially designed compressor that works in a circular motion, as opposed to up-and-down piston action. A scroll compressor has one fixed scroll which remains stationary and another moving or orbiting scroll that rotates through the use of a swing link”

Clear as mud, right?

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if that is a 2 stage compressor i would believe it’s either in one stage or two stages more than the other and one of the stages hasn’t been discovered, yet. once you determine it’s displaying use in stage 1 or stage 2, find a way to make it operate more often in the opposite stage… like if it’s found in stage 2… turn off a thermostat once in while to make it operate in stage 1 more often …so it will be discovered.
however, if I lived in AZ, i’d prefer AC operating normally instead of throttling it for discovery. lol

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Not bad in AZ today at all, most of the state won’t even reach 110 degrees.

Easy for us in NH to say, where 85 degrees is considered sweltering.

Power meter for same time period.

Yup, looks like the second stage uses much more power and has a different on and off signature.

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Makes sense, It is the peak heat of the day, but sure would think its a signature that would be unique and found by now.

I also have a two stage AC and Sense doesn’t pick up the second stage. Stage 2 is used very rarely though, so it’s understandable that it would never be found.

This AC is also a heat pump, however, and if the device is discovered in heat pump mode, detection in AC mode will be unreliable, and vice versa. There are electronic expansion valves with different profiles in heat pump and AC mode, so the electrical load profile of the system is different in the two modes. Kind of annoying.

I don’t know HVAC, but stage 2 might stay on for longer periods, revealing fewer cycles for Sense to learn. I have just simple single stage units, both upstairs and downstairs and Sense is really nailing the AC cycles. The top line is from Sense, the bottom from my Ecobee.

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I sure hope Ecobee will help to “educate” sense as to when the AC is on, I’m buying one to replace my really decent Honeywell programmable…… fingers crossed.

Im straight up jealous… Are you using smartthings and some sort of jnode for sense? How are you getting info like the register temperature?

I’m using Home Assistant (HA) to sample and integrate the data from Sense and Ecobee. Both of the Home Assistant integrations worked off-the-shelf for me with no HA customization needed. I bought a few extra Ecobee temp sensors so I have stationed one inside the register closest to each of my furnaces / air handlers, so I can get a feel for how well each furnace / compressor is performing.

I converted a very old Intel NUC into a dedicated Home Assistant server. Works really well - just flashed a 200GB SSD with a downloaded version of the Home Assistant Operating System.

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Awesome! Im about to try this RasPI build. I see it will intergrade Smartthings as well… AND VENSTAR Thermostats!! I haven’t gotten my 2 thermostats to show up in anything and the geofenceing for smartthings has turn to crap since they “upgraded” their app. Which doesnt sound like a big deal… but when your garage door opens at 1am because ST just realized you got home at 7pm. I even ran a siren inside the house with the old app and never had it mess up.

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Good luck ! I really like HA, but only use it for data collection, not control right now, but am investigating the best way to prevent my floor downstairs floor heating from coming on in AM when it is likely I will need to use AC later in the day (weather prediction).

Even though HA can integrate with Apple HomeKit, I have avoided turning on that integration, because I really don’t want to add a second set of data for many of my smart devices that already talk directly to HomeAssistant (Ecobee being the main one)