Hello all:
Can someone kelp identify what the following device might be:
It comes on for a short period of time every 3-4 minutes.
Thanks in advance.
Almost looks like a coffee maker, like a Keurig, or something like that. Do you see the spikes continually throughout the day/night?
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At first glance, I’d agree with @ac.mackenzie11 on this looking like a Keuring/Coffeemaker.
No, it is not my Keurig, as I only turn that on when I am going to use it in the morning for my two cups of coffee (I am the only one in the family that drinks coffee). And after my second cup, I turn it off.
That signatures runs continual during the day. Here is a screen shot at 4:00 a.m.:
The help is always appreciated.
Bob
Indeed if you look at @samwooly1’s Device Library postings of the Keurig K425 standby heater the math doesn’t exactly match. So doing some rough math:
I get about 230W for 400 seconds/hr = 25Whr for your signature breakout.
Quoting the K425 standby above of 245W “for 4s every minute” ==> 245W for 240s/hr or 16Whr your device is a little over 1.5 times that energy.
In “keeping things hot terms” it seems quite close. A moderate variation in water volume?
So thinking:
- Double-check the off-ness of the Keurig (what model is it?)
- Sniff around for 3-cup warmers? Bed warmers? Cold out?
- “230W” = potential attic fan load. The regular timing could also be a hint of a timed fan. There are some indications in the signature of a slight motor-induced spike at the start of some of the cycles at least.
You may want to get methodical and narrow things down. Try here:
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Looking at the wattage of the unknown device I don’t think a Keurig is the right device. I have a image of a Keurig brewing two cups. The wattage is 1395 and goes to zero after it is finished making the cups. My guess is a fridge or freezer.
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The Keurig operates in a couple of different modes:
-
Primary element, this is what you are seeing @rverwij
-
Standby (as above) when the the water temperature is being maintained. This is similar to what @bob4 is seeing.
So even with the device, Keurig, OFF, it will still try to maintain some water temperature?
I will unplug it and see what happens.
Should be interesting - please post results. @samwooly1 noted below that his Keurig with a timer, still kept the standby heater going, even when the “timer” was off.
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I was shocked by what I read on this thread and the Keurig web site discussion of power consumption, so I hauled out my trusty Kill-a-Watt.
Also, different models (we have two) seem to have very different behavior.
Keurig VUE Coffee Maker
“Off” it draws 57 watts (Yikes!) continuously
Heating up it draws 1150 watts, then cycles from about 60 watts to about 700 watts while maintaining temperature.
In our home, with recent turn on, it cycles about every half minute or so.
Keurig K-Café Single Serve Coffee, Latte & Cappuccino Maker
“Off” it draws 0.8 watts continuously
Heating up it draws 1260 watts, then cycles from about 5 watts to around 275 watts
Cycle time seems to be a couple of minutes, with quite short peaks.
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IMHO Keurigs may deserve a negative Energy Star rating in general.
Energy Black Holes?
There are better ways to do the “keep warm” thing, the keys being insulation and temperature adjustment.
I posted this before but the Zojirushi Micom specs are interesting to reference again:
Notice the capacity is 4 liters so a fair comparison needs to account for that.
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I started unplugging/Turing off circuit breakers. Here you go - IT IS NOT:
Keurig
Water heater
Cable box
Washer
Dryer
Going for the hot water heater next.
OK, at this point it’s probably helpful if you post some more zoomed out images of the Mains Power Meter. 12-24hrs, that kind of scale … so those 200+W cycles are visible above the background.
Eventually, of course, it’s important to determine the daily (and longer) cycles unless the device/component cycle is really showing 24/7/365.
FOUND IT!
It is coming from a Whirlpool Water dispenser. It dispenses cold and hot water.
We unplugged it and the signature went away.
Time to investigate a little further. I will go to the Whirlpool site and see if I can find anything on it.
Thank you all!
Bob
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Sounds like a secondary element to keep water hot, just like a Keurig or similar coffee maker.
Does this dispenser have another primary element that comes on while actually dispensing?
The signature shown doesn’t appear to have enough wattage to initially heat water.
When your sure this is the culprit, please add to the library.
That would actually be a great device to see “ground truth” on via a smart plug.
Would be helpful to all if you could put it on an HS110 and post some screenshots.
We can create an entry in the Community Device Library to aid in future human detection … and even, perhaps, Sense will beat us next time.
Hot! Or should I say cool!
For reference, @kevin1 posted this recently. Obviously no cooling cycle fun.
Note that the Zojirushi and @kevin1’s InSinkErator are doing the initial heat cycle in the 700W realm. Keeping a larger volume of water hot, “a big kettle”, is most efficiently done with a kind of mid-range element I suppose. Half way between a Keurig keep-warm and a regular kettle that aims for maximum speed.
So, I don’t expect we’re necessarily looking for a 1,500W heat cycle from a primary element.
Great catch. If you can attach a screenshot of the daily usage in the Power Meter, and supply the specs and model # from Whirlpool we can add it to the Community Device Library.
Community Device Library? Where do I see that?
And the dispenser is just simple “water cooler.” 5 gallon bottle on top. It is gravity fed when dispensing so the only time it is “on,” is when it is heating or cooling. And it cools the water a lot more than it heats the water. It cools the water down to about 41º (F) and heats it to around 183º.
I am not very technical with this stuff. So if anyone wold like to explain to me how to do more with signatures, etc., I am always willing to learn.
Thanks!
The Community Device Library is a category in the forum and you’ll find entries in the links that both @kevin1 and I posted above.
If you search the forum you can also narrow down the search to that Community Device Library category. e.g. search “fridge” and select the Community Device Library.
Your device is interesting because it both heats and cools, and mostly at the whim of somewhat random usage on your part. It’s like a combination of a kettle and a mini-fridge. This is a challenge for Sense to natively detect “as a single device” because despite the energy flow going through to the one circuit the water dispenser is plugged into, the heating and cooling components are activating at various times in different modes. Sense could well, eventually, tell you it found a kettle and a fridge.
I suspect it will be quite difficult to fully identify all the waveform only associated with this without using a smart plug like an Kasa HS110. Do you have one or can you get one and dedicate it to the water dispenser?
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