Detecting Devices with Different Run Cycles (ex. Dishwasher/Washer/Hot Tub)

Device Detection
#1

Does Sense detect devices based on small signature signals (pump/heat turned on once) or does it detect an entire run of a device(pump/heat turned on 2-3 times during x duration)? Started up the dishwasher this morning but I changed it to a 1 hour run time since the dishes just needed a quick rinse/steam. Curious if I am going to get Pump 1 and Heat 1 for standard wash and Pump 2 and Heat 2 for a 1-hour wash.

There are a lot of devices that would fit into this category, a few I can think of that you may use different modes on.

Coffee Maker - Normal vs Strong
Hot Tub - Clean Mode vs Use
Washer - Different Clean Modes
Dishwasher - 1 Hour vs Standard
High Wattage Lights - Full Brightness vs Dimmed

Cheers,
Brian

#2

Sense detects devices based on their on/off signature. We go into more detail about how device detection works in this blog:
How Does Sense Detect My Devices? - Sense Blog.

I have a Dryer detected via native detection that only picked up the standard run cycle. Energy efficient mode only uses one of the 2 available heating elements, so the waveform looked much different and was not picked up by my default setting. It’s since improved the accuracy, but a majority of the time i run the dryer on standard mode so I don’t see the issue arise too much.

Using Dedicated Circuit Monitoring or Smart plugs that integrate with Sense are a great solution for detection of devices with various types of run settings.

Also, worth noting that we’re looking at how to improve detection of resistive heating elements this year. You can see more of that conversation in the recent Data Science update we shared last month:

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#3

Thank you very much @JustinAtSense and makes sense for the detection. I am looking at the add-on circuit monitoring for the hot tub specifically since it has a ton of different modes and is the largest energy hog that we have.

EDIT: Thanks for the Blog link, very helpful

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