Thanks @kevin1 for these updates and apologies for not calling out your extensive (and very satisfying!) prior analysis in my post but I had actually gone through it and as you can detect I was hinting at a slightly different aspect of AO. Perhaps more of a meta-analysis. I’ll explain [and apologies for the rehashing]:
SCALE!: Starting at the “bottom” it’s clear from attempting analysis that you can never get enough resolution. Well, maybe, but the more the better. As you pointed out
So that said, and holding to the view of a single device, what Sense users see (short of your analysis) is the Power Meter waveform combined with a knowledge (and awareness) of the function of the actual device from which the waveform is generated.
SCALE!: Starting near the “top”, and using again the Fridge as an example, some devices (fridge/freezer/UPS(?)) for some people have what I would call an encapsulated energy profile. Ice in a fridge/freezer and the thermal mass of the stuff therein is essentially an energy store (in reverse?) so I would “average out” the energy consumption to the greater timescale of the true On to the true Off (i.e. switching on/off manually). These are special cases but I would argue that if you ask a non-Sense user to name the device in their house that is truly “Always on” they will reply: “The fridge”.
A UPS or other high-capacitance device presents the same philosophical AO quandry: e.g. A high capacity battery charges in 15min but then could dissipate through usage over an AO-scale time period. How do you classify it? I would argue: It depends what is doing the dissipation.
And if you plug a fridge into a UPS? You get my point.
SCALE!: Starting near the “top” again, and using an OLED TV as an example (crazy variable waveform while On that reflects the content being watched), when I go into the menus of the TV I have the option of adjusting the settings for “Quick Startup” [Note to watt-watchers, here is a place to save a few]. If I switch “Quick Startup” on I’m guessing the Standby power will increase and my TV tells me as much. Here, I am deliberately choosing to increase or decrease the AO power by switching the Quick Startup on/off. On another level I can also switch the TV on/off manually or with a Smart Plug. The point here is that the TV has no real encapsulated energy … or does it? If I deliberately set the TV for Quick Startup vs regular Standby Mode vs switch it Off-Off am I not also modifying the AO expectation? This would seem to be self-evident in the waveform, ready for AO analysis, but without Power Mode awareness the interpretation of different Standby currents would be the same. The real point here is that through analysis (and reference to some real Device specifications knowledge) Sense can potentially detect regular Standby vs Quick Start and Sense can alert me and say “It looks like your TV is set to Quick Start mode. You can save some energy by switching off that mode”
SCALE!: Looking near the “bottom” somewhere, low power electronics like modems/routers are in theory AO but in practice and as time goes by I wouldn’t be surprised if more aggressive Power Saving modes are invoked in those as well … Nobody at home = auto shutdown. This will complicate the AO equation. My argument would be that Sense’s device awareness would treat this kind of device’s AO like a fridge regardless of its auto power cycling. User: “Yeah, my modem and router are always on of course”.
As an amusing aside, I suppose you could point to a motion-sensing light: “Oh yeah, that light is always on”.
I’m drilling a little bit deep I know but I wanted to calibrate the analysis, at least in my own mind.