While we all want more home automation sensor/action kind of integration, I think that Sense could really enhance device detection by tapping into Alexa, SmartThings, Wink, Logitech Harmony sequencers. All those hard to detect low voltage devices are already detected and automated by something else, why not to poach (share) that information with the Sense?
When I say “Alexa, turn on Berdoom light” it is as direct as it gets for an exact detection of what’s happening to which device. Why not correlate spike in the electrical activity to a voice or a remote control command issued to a device(s)?!
Same with the Logitech Harmony remotes. Harmony “knows” every single device model it automates and the sequence it turns those devices on or off. By tapping into that database the Sense could scrape all the information it needs for its own device detection, then correlate timing and apply its own machine learning algorithms. Why make it hard when we already have silos of data containing information about our devices.
I’m betting they are starting to do that. The big challenge is that there many different home automation solutions to link to. Each link is an expensive long-term investment when supported correctly.
I can’t get into specifics, but we are working on deeper integrations with existing smart home tech. Timelines are also subject to change, so I won’t get into that. Just stay tuned as there will be good news coming eventually!
I am hoping that this might include smart switches, even those that don’t have energy measurements. It seems to me that, through repeatedly cycling a smart switch on and off, that the standard “full on” load could be determined by the changes measured at the mains CTs. For dimmable switches, if some measure of the amount of dimming applied by the smart switch is provided to Sense, then that correction could then be applied to the known “full on” load. Perhaps this could even be dialed in more exactly by on-off cycling at the dimmed setting.
Begin in the beginning. Samsung SmartThings is the major player on US market, followed by Wink. Nailing the SmartThings thing will be HUGE!
I would love to see an integration with Insteon, but I have no clue where that might fall on the long list of possible home automation systems to integrate with Sense.
There’s one clue from Sense’s initial focus on smartplugs. They picked devices that can report power usage, not just On/Off, on a 2x per second basis. They seem to be picking popular devices that provide a steady stream of power data, not merely On/Off events.