I’ve had a Sense for about 3 weeks. Purchased to help me evaluate the effectiveness in a monetary sense for changing from a 22-yo. open-loop lakewater based heat pump HVAC system to a modern American Standard pair of compressors with new air handlers.
So my original system, for more than two weeks, consisted of a 220v, 1hp, submersible well pump in the lake that fired up when either the 2 or 2.5 ton compressors in my garage needed support. I have two refrigerators. Two split-unit AC Heat pumps on another floor. My home has been “automated” using StarGate since it was built in 1996, and I’ve had a long life in technology as well as pharmacy, I am very much the expert generalist. Beta for US Robotics, IBM OS2, Stacker, Citrix, and a host of long-gone softwares. Web designer for 15 years, and database programmer and systems analyst for more than 20. So I have some experience in software development and featureset origination.
So I am baffled to discover that Sense has been around for a couple of years. My initial judgment was that this was a very new technology, from the methods employed to accrue “devices”. Wrote tech support with questions and suggestions, didn’t make any real difference.
WHY iS THERE NO TRAINING MODE FOR THE DEVICE?
Logically, one can install the device properly, and then, with EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TURNED OFF, begin to enable devices, and have Sense respond to that new amperage draw/cyclic flavor with a query/guess, and allow me to immediately specify what that consumption is dedicated to.
Instead, every random few days, a guess is made, and with my sheer diversity of electrical components in the house that kick on and off for randomly determined durations, I have to guess as to what it was/is, quite often WRONG.
So 5 days ago I did the replacement of the two water-based heat pumps with 2 new air handlers which have variable speed motors, 2 new rooftop heat pump American Standard compressors, and altered the “on-demand” nature of the well pump to a simple breaker switch off/on setting. (Though I do have an Insteon 220v switch to deploy for control via my HomeSeer Hometroller S6 Pro, eventually) I am gradually decomissioning my StarGate as I employ a variety of technologies that will perhaps surpass the functionality of the 22 y.o. StarGate. ?
So WHY does Sense, after at least a year on the market, not have a teaching/learning mode available?
Certainly, the business model requires they develop this superb database of fingerprints for each electrical device in use in homes throughout their market. But without enabling more dialogue between the shareholder/owner of the device and the device, ALL data is supect, and the end-user’s experience is compromised.
So, all that consideration evoked, WTF?
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: We should be able to TRAIN this!