A month ago I added sense flex add-on clamp sensors to my furnace and blower circuit. Sense found over the weekend my a mystery motor and I’ve determined it is indeed my blower. So under “NOW” it shows my sensor circuit and now my mystery motor however they aren’t additive which is good to the total usage but how do I get it to handle blower is the major portion of what the circuit is reading? Maybe hard to explain and might not be explaining well but have pic. Appreciate any guidance.
I like seeing my blower separate as it is used with the A/C which sense has identified separately.
To make sure I have the correct understanding, it sounds like you:
Installed Dedicated Circuit Monitoring to your furnace and blower fan (it looks like both of these circuits are being monitored by 1 sensor, can you confirm this is the case?)
Sense identified your blower fan
Sense is now double-counting the Blower Fan
If you’re using Dedicated Circuit Monitoring on a device that Sense has completely (or partially) detected, you need to inform Sense via the Sense app by navigating to the new device and select “What’s Being Monitored” to tell Sense that your Dedicated Circuit is monitoring a detected device. You would select the 1_Motor 2 Device if you want to combine them.
Since it sounds like you want these separate, you would have to figure out a way to monitor JUST your Furnace with one of the Dedicated Circuit sensors. Sense is unable to tell them apart, since Dedicated Circuit Monitoring presents each circuit like an individual device.
I believe you have it correct for item 1 as my furnace (with blower motor) are monitored on one dedicated circuit with one sensor. I might add that my HVAC zone control is also on this circuit. For item 2, I believe that Sense identified my blower motor based on wattage and not the 3 tiny zone control motors to hold my dampers open. For item 3, it is double count usage shown separate wattage on the NOW bubbles but not on Total.
I would like to track the blower separately if possible from the dedicated circuit however if it is complicated or I can’t easily tell it to separate them in the app, I would keep as is and add blower to dedicated circuit. If my A/C is running my blower and HVAC system has to run so I can track them.
Is there a post that explains “dedicated circuit monitoring” or how you would install add-on clamp sensors? I did my own install and just put the clamps around my mains. Where would I put additional clamps? Just trying to understand and also get more accurate device detection. (and more device detection)
Check out this, and the following pages for descriptions of how the flex sensors can be used.
If you have any other questions after looking at the pages, start up a new thread and I’m sure the community can get you sorted.
Thanks, the installation guide was the most help. It seems the best use case is for a breaker that has only one device attached, and for whatever reason, Sense isn’t discovering said device on that breaker. There could be more than one device on the breaker, but it said with dedicated monitoring, all the devices would just show up as a single device. Thanks again. Hmmmm, I can’t think of a use in my home for that right now, but I’ll keep it in mind. Really think I should get solar panels or an electric car so I can have more fun with this.
Exactly, the dedicated is about telling sense “everything that comes via this one CT is Device called X”. That said, someone else on the forums went with a large scale and just decided that they wanted to track their entire entertainment system. So the breaker feeds their TV setup. There are a bunch of devices on that breaker, but in sense, its just “Media Center” (or whatever). Its is up to you as far as how you want to see your data.
Common uses for the dedicated are things like HVAC systems, electric hot water heaters, dishwashers, electric oven or cooktops…
These are devices that often are made up of lots of individual components that Sense may detect some of, but miss others, but are also often on dedicated breakers.
If you have decent roof space and a good orientation for optimal sun, look into solar. If it is something you are interested in, I would say look into it sooner than later as many of the federal and state solar incentive programs are starting to wind down now that Solar is more widely available and deployed.
I use DCM (direct circuit monitoring) on two circuits and find it quite useful - one on my EV charger which is a dedicated 240V circuit, and one on the breaker for a subpanel that contains 5 floor heating loops. Both of those have suffered from incomplete detections in the past and DCM has helped. One of the floor heaters has also been conflated with dryer detections so DCM helps sort that out.
As I’ve had sense since August 2020 and it had not found anything related to my furnace so I went with the dedicated circuit option to track. I was not anticipating that it would eventually find the blower. As my A/C also uses my blower and HVAC system, keeping stuff separate is cool but not necessary. If easy, I’d do it. If not, I’ll bring my blower under the dedicated circuit. Was just looking for options as I didn’t expect something on that circuit would be found.
My smart thermostat has a special setting for “re-circulate mode”. It runs the fan every hour for 5 minutes. The A/C or the heating does not have to be ON. It is fully automatic. SENSE found my blower unit after about 3-months when I used this menu setting. Maybe your thermostat might have a similar feature?
