"Device Not On/Off" Tag suggestions

I was going to suggest the same as @ben.

  • Give Sense time to re-acquire devices in your household (weeks)
  • Use the “Device not on” button when you notice an identification gone awry. But don’t get compulsive about it.
  • Be prepared for conflations between devices, plus multiple identifications representing the same device (and even the same component in a device - I have 3 AC’s found all connected with the same AC unit)

But most importantly, don’t get too caught up in trying to “help” identification, or reset when you suspect something is going wrong. It will continue to improve over time.

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Kevin1 and ben, thank you both for the responses, they were both
not considered picking on me in any way but were a great pick me
up as I sit here stressing at 2 in the morning.
Besides, as you can tell I’m not the easiest person to get along with.
I’m not bashful about what I feel or say, I’m always open to constructive
criticism (your responses weren’t taken as criticism) and I have a thick
skin when I need to.
I needed to hear from at least one person about patient, two of you had the same
advice. That tells me a lot. That’s things just might correct themselves over time.

Your correct about the water heater having a different current demand, although
it’s a nominal 4500 watt load, the actual use for the first was 4600 range and this
one is 4800. That’s a big difference.
As far as support response, I found out why last eek and is was surprising. Their
fulltime staff is very, very small. At least fulltime that actually know anything. What
they have is a bunch of interns and last week brought in a new batch. With such
a small team to start with I can see where the customers took the backseat in
order to start training those new to the team. I don’t know how it works or the exact
number of employees but if they were already behind then this had to make it even
worse. I’m trying to be understanding about it but I’ve been in business too and have
been shorthanded.
so there were times it cost me an arm and a leg to ensure I provided the services I
promised on the front end and lost my you know what.
I’m willing to wager that there isn’t and hasn’t been a sense user that hasn’t been
disappointed. That’s pretty revealing about what their expectations were and those
expectations were provided by sense, the internet has very little information about
it from other parties.

Overall I’m happier with it than I’m disappointed. Doubt I could return it as although it
was new and unused, I purchased from an eBay seller and only paid $200 for it. I
don’t plan on getting rid of it just yet.

I think in the end I wish sense was more realistic with their statements. Almost everything
is based on what they see the product being or what its supposed to do in theory. I don’t
think empty promises is going to sell more product in the long run with unhappy customers
when word of mouth is the best advertising tool. And I think they need to inform people
of what to realistically expect. It turns into a credibility issue. if I say 100 truths and then tell
one half truth, you would question the 100 truths.

Kevin1, I understand about not trying to help, I just observe. In the beginning I did go around
turning things on ad off but just to build data bout wattage for something to refer to when a
detection happened.

I’ll take both of your advice and try to just ignore it for awhile. I think I’ll just look f there is a
detection so I can remove the “this is a guess” and rename to something so sense doesn’t
change it (I usually just add a question mark to the end of the name).
Thanks again to both of you.
Dan

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I would concur, you just need to take a deep breath, relax, and sit back and let Sense do it’s thing for a month or two.

Obsessing about each device, every incorrect trigger, and constantly renaming, deleting, or adjusting devices is not your friend right now. Sense does adjust it’s behaviour as it learns and adjusts, but you need to be patient for that to happen.

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I’m going to take a needed break from it. Obsessing is the perfect
word to use for what I’ve been doing, I truly do have OCD and for
me it’s easy for me to hyper focus on thee sense. I really do lile
the device and want to watch it grow and succeed. With OCD I
tend to take things to far even though I intellectually know I shpuld
not.
Oshepilot, it really is a tremendous help that you and others in the
community respond in a way that’s talks me down and put things
back into perspective. It’s a reset of sorts for me.
Thank You
Dan

I was recently on vacation for a week and made it a point to not use my phone much, including Sense. I’m pretty obsessive about it (as well as my various other IoT apps). When I came back, Sense had found 3 new devices :smiley:

All that to say, sometimes a break is nice, especially with learning tech like Sense. It’s easy to obsess over the minutia (I know from experience!), with every little 1/2 second change and with everything that Sense isn’t quite nailing, but it’s somewhat like missing the forest for the trees. Sense needs to learn and like any learning device (and like people!), sometimes it forgets things, repeats things, and just makes simple mistakes. As an analog, I taught writing and video production at a university for 6 or so years. When I first started, I was kinda crazy about the little things — grammar, style, a shot lasting a millisecond too long, a minor editing mistake. Sure, having those mistakes corrected was helpful on some level for my students, but content was most important and I was getting lost in the details at the expense of the big picture. I’m trying to treat my own experience with Sense in a similar way, just backing up and letting it do it’s thing (to a point — if something is egregiously wrong, I’ll still ping my coworkers).

I hope that doesn’t come off as trying to excuse the product. I meant it as an honest accounting of the state of things. There are absolutely issues with device detection and we are working very hard to solve them. The good news is that we’ve made major strides over just the past year and have some awesome stuff on deck. This includesteaching Sense how to correct its mistakes.

@RyanAtSense, I did not take it as an excuse. Just a good explanation
based on your knowledge and experience with Sense that far exceeds
the very short time I have. I have not been paying a lot of attention to it
since reading what @kevin1, @benand @oshawapilot advised to me. I
said not a lot, I have viewed a little as I have a couple issues in my home
that Sense is helping me to diagnose. Instead of constantly watching it
was maybe a dozen times and I am keeping my phone in my pocket instead
of my hand.
I’ve had a similar experience to the constant watching before. I’m a type
one diabetic and I’m insulin dependent. I’m on an insulin pump now instead
of the takingn6 or more injections I used to take daily. I used to have to check my
sugar up to 5 times a day then I got a new device at the end of 2017. This device
is something I wear on my skin all of the time with a needle that under the skin.
Instead of pricking my finger all the time, this thing checks it every 5 minutes
and sends it to my phone, watch, wifes phone and her watch. When it was new
I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, much lie Sense. Having type one was already
a full time job. All this new device did was make it where what I used to pay
attention to 6 times a day into paying attention constantly. Needless to say
the new wore off and I don’t pay attention 100 times a day now.
I also have OCD so this type of thing and especially something I really like
is going to be a tough my for self control, I want to look comstantly.
Now I’m going to be self conscious about posting knowing you taught writing. I
am well aware of my terrible grammar, punctuation and all writing skills. It’s
very interesting about your background and where you are now.

I know Sense is trying and doing all they can. I get frustrated and my personality
just doesn’t hold back. The wife says I don’t have a “filter”. The thing is I speak
my mind and it helps me to get past things easier. I usually say what I have to
say and I’m very quickly over it after that. I’m talking minutes. getting the responses
when I have been in that state whether they were positive or negative have been
very helpful. I’m interested in how other people view things and feel and don’t think
for a second that I’m always right.
It looks like Sense is going to be a bit of a roller coaster for me. I’ll get used to it
in time.
Thanks for the response
Dan

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Appreciate this thread as I’m experiencing similar behavior. The first week it has detected things really well. About 8-10 devices in that period that seemed accurate. As time goes on though it seems to be making a lot of mistakes.

Just today its told me fridges were off when they were on and drawing power. My HVAC was on and it says its off and a big wattage shows in other. My pellot stove is on and it says its off. These flip sometimes.

This started happening with this cold we’ve been getting in the east and with me using the pellet stove and HVAC harder. I wish I had a way to HELP IT get things right, by telling it when stuff is on/off, entering average draw as monitored from kill a watt or with one of the smart outlets. That’s the frustrating part, I have no way to really help. When I think I have identified something and fill in the details, then the pattern changes, I have to back that out and wonder does this thing work.

Love the product idea and my first week, but now I’m frustrated and the excitement is gone as quickly as it came. The vibe is that its a community driven project, so let your community help more, it will make them happier, improve the experience, and hopefully give you more data.

Now I will just do what is suggested in the thread and wait, hoping it gets better :frowning:

I had freezer and fridge reporting backwards for a couples day and it straightened out.
It got me worried when the misreporting started to happen and though, this is terrible.
My oven and dryer happened at the same time and still somewhat mixed up but improved.
It looks like it happened about the same time for both of us.
A bunch of users told me to be patient and wait, don’t stress and they were correct.
Don’t watch too close. I have notifications on my phone turned off for now and I’m leering it go for a few days.

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I think my pellet stove was wreaking havoc. It got very confused by it. I’ve isolated that away with a HS110 smart plug so it know exactly whats it doing.

Other problem is I have four Refrigerator an Freezers device. It seems to have figured out one, I’ve isolated another with a another smart plug. I plan to let it run a while too, just frustrating. There is so much info I could be providing to help it.

Currently dealing with a bug in the app that won’t let me rename things. Quite annoying. Guess I will create a bug report for them.

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@jvetter
I’m going to work backwards on your last post. I had the same problem with renaming. There is a bug fix outnfor that already but what I found is that if the device is “on”, the rename won’t stick. Try letting the device turn off or go unplug it while you rename and I think it will stick, works for me.
The refrigerators and freezers I ha e were detected great. Sense was reporting and giving 100% accurate notifications until that bug fix I mentioned rolled out. Starting that day it has been reporting freezer as fridge and vice versa. It was doing it every single time, the opposite device. Slowly it’s starting to get it right and is about 50/50 now. I did do the “the device is not on” button a couple of times over a few days with each of them and do t know if that helped. I didn’t want to use that button every time in case it bombarded tech support.
Good luck with yours.

I think I have to agree with this idea. I had thought about it many times. I have a hair dryer that says it’s on several times when the dish washer is on. When it’s really on I would like to give Sense some positive reinforcement to agree “yes it is” I think this would be very useful with a device that you have to click “Device is not on” quite often, but is reporting correctly when the actual device is on. The algorithms should be able to take this data and improve detection.

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I’ve had a similar request out to Sense team about 6mo ago. @RyanAtSense mentioned that they are thinking/working on something similar.

I came across your post after I created the topic, I apologize. I would have just kept your topic growing and added support to what you had already identified as a good idea.

@samwooly1 … no problem … my post wasn’t getting much traffic. So I’m glad there is more interest in the idea now; maybe the feature will become available sooner :slight_smile:

I sure hope so @serovner86
The update last week that mainly addressed the renaming problem seems to coincide with my unit getting way off course. The same happenings as you describe in your original post.
I’m thinking about deleting all of them not reporting or showing correctly but will lose probably 10 out of 17.
I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid the longer I let it build data and history is going to make it worse. I started with just one giving problems but it seems to be growing everyday.