My Sense notified me it found a new device “AC” it is actually my ground source heat pump. (used for heating and cooling). The entire number of watts are allocated to the heat pump when in fact there is a separate submersible well pump, (air handler), and a small circulating pump too. Will Sense eventually find those other devices. I see the air handler on my meter when it comes on and also the pump and its controller. Do I leave and wait or do I have to do something with the app to tell Sense that there are other devices in the bubble? Not a biggie since they technically all are heating/cooling
My advice: Name it for what it is. Don’t do anything else and give Sense time to do its stuff. Sense may or may not find the additional components. if it finds then, then you can merge, but I would merge until your are sure that all the detected devices you are going to merge are 100%, without an other device conflation.
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You are quite lucky. We also have a geothermal system and after two years Sense hasn’t managed to detect most of it. Our system has a variable speed deep well pump (which according to Sense engineers is not only undetectable, but also interferes with detecting much of our home), the heat pump, and two circulator pumps…one for radiant and one for cooling and aux heat. Of these only the heat pump has been detected, and that not reliably/accurately.
You should be glad you are getting readings that include the whole “system”.
I have 2 Sense units and this one is on my panel with very few "small " circuits. Mainly my Resistive heat back up… my variable speed pump, and a few other thongs… (always on draw of 82W) When I review the meter and line graph I can see the various stages of the heating system surge. The 1st part is the air handler, the 2nd is the variable speed submersible, and the 3rd is the compressor. I can also see a small blip of 45 watts. Then my other image is shut down. all in reverse except I see my vari speed sub pump adjusting itself a couple of times post shutdown. I think that is my desuperheater pump. I did not get Sense to watch every circuit., I use the power quality features/solar and watch my big ticket items, my pumps, and my sump pump. Yea-I think this is a bonus. My other sense has not picked up my air source heat pump at all
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Andy, do you have the basic Sense unit with only the two "Amp Clamp’’ probes or do you have the two additional clamps that can be used for “solar” (generator of any fuel, or dedicated circuit monitoring)
I installed a mini split inverter heat pump and sense can’t seem to ‘understand’ all the different energy signatures for various operating parameters I purchased the additional two clamps and are using them to monitor the two energy hogs in my humble Florida home… The HVAC and the resistive electric water heater.
I installed my mini split 21 SEER DuctlessAire 24,000 BTU unit in conjunction to my Trane split HVAC. I set up a single probe to monitor my hvac total by verifying each (phase A) wire from my three devices goes through the one clamp in the correct direction (from breaker to device, other wise it will subtract rather than addition as energy was used). My three hvac units are the mini, the outdoor condenser unit, and the inside air handler with resistive heat strip.
Do you have four probes and if so, what are you monitoring? I suppose that you could get the dedicated circuit probes on your geothermal system and then it would count every electron that when through it…
We have a large solar array, with Sense monitoring that thru the “solar clamps” (now being hacked for other limited use by some customers). This leaves us with no solution for the multiple devices Sense can’t detect.
One thing Sense has failed to do is provide a scalable (multiple circuits) solution for 240v circuits.
So Andy, you have a large solar array AND a geo thermal system… cool!
I wouldn’t exactly call using the auxiliary clamps from a Sense Solar Energy Monitor as “hacking”, at least not nowaday as the Sense app allows for configuration as either 120vac, 240vac, or even the single leg of two 240 vac devices as “dedicated energy monitoring”…
Perhaps two plus years ago the “hackers” were finding a creative way of using the solar clamps other than for solar generation monitoring. Today this is just another way of monitoring our devices.
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If I were ever to build again (we say “never, never, never”), I’d definitely do the geothermal and solar again. We also did radiant and mini-duct for A/C and ERV distribution. All in all it’s really comfortable and very energy efficient, even with NH weather. Still, we use more power than we’d like.
I bought the Sense after seeing it on This Old House a couple of years ago, with hopes that it would teach me how to be even more efficient. I already had a WELserver system, which does a great job of monitoring on/off and power for a few specific large devices.
What I didn’t know (and Sense didn’t say) was that:
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Sense gets confused by “noisy” devices (e.g our constant pressure/variable speed deep well pump), corrupting Sense’s ability to monitor much of anything else in the house.
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Sense can’t detect/track variable speed devices very well if at all, like most current refrigerators, freezers, washers, air distribution systems, etc.
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Sense can’t detect devices that don’t turn on and off because it doesn’t actually detect devices, it detects transitions.
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Sense can’t detect low power devices, they get lost in the complex waveforms in a typical home.
I’d not buy another Sense, even though some people report it works fine for them.
I hear ya about what I have read about sense from users vs the marketing. I did make my decision knowing these promises. I do use it for overall consumption vs solar generation. I would love to be able to drill down more. The power quality feature could be extremely useful if more real-time notifications could be created
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I should add I have 2 x 200 A (each with solar) panels and 2 sense unit. Sense does not combine the data between the 2 accts. So it is possible to be “taking from the grid” on one panel and “selling to the grid” on the other. So I maybe in a deficit but in fact at my utility meter I am in surplus. The 2 panels individually feed back to the Meter then back to the grid.
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I already had my WELserver monitoring system from ten years ago for top level power monitoring, not to mention 63 detailed on/off detections…but no power from them. With WELserver the Wattnode add-on costs another $250-300/node, so I only did mains and solar with that. Sense was supposed to fill in the rest of the activity.
@andy I have 2 fronius String inverters and they give me very accurate solar data. Fronius now offers an option to measure consumption. I must admit I like what sense does , but it not perfect in anyway. I do have a much better picture of what is happening in the load centers and for that I like it. I will keep giving feedback and suggestions and hopefully we can help the Sense people keep improving the system 
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