Does anyone else have problems with devices being hijacked? I have had my Sense for four years and it seems over the last year I have had to delete more and more devices that had been previously identified and working well, but were later hijacked, showing on or off when that wasn’t the case. It’s especially annoying when there were alerts associated, such as sump pump running for more than five minutes, or light left on. Tech support says to simply delete the device and it will relearn even better. I have deleted a dozen devices only never to return.
I was a huge fan of Sense but it is becoming functionally worthless to me. The remaining devices aren’t ones I really care about.
Deleting devices and relearning them even better only works if the original detection was not solid. If the device definitions you care about are all gone, you might consider a full reset. Of course, this is not something to implement lightly, so before doing a full reset you should look around this forum for advice from others who have done so.
A lot of these cases are caused by a missed on/off signature. Sometimes, when a detection progresses over time it miss some of these on/off transitions. Since you’ve already deleted the conflated devices, I would recommend reaching out to Support so they can take a look at what’s happening with your monitor data to see if there’s anything that can be done to improve the odds of a detection for some of your missing devices.
If you have any issues with your Support ticket, just PM me!
I had a similar event but just for a couple of devices. One was with a vacuum cleaner being being co-opted by one of my HVAC units about a month ago… Even though the HVAC was discovered over the summer, and the ejector pump long before that, I think the signatures got confused because my HVAC that was discovered over the summer was blended between both the compressor and the handler even though they are two separate draws, they always came on together over the summer. Now with winter, the gas heating element and air handler come on, but the AC compressor does not… My guess is that the heating /air handler element draw is similar enough to the draw from the vacuum on cycle that Sense began using that bubble and tag for my heat…
Part of this rational is that my second main AC unit and Air Handler are only a year old and those were discovered as separate and distinct devices. Where my 40 year old small HVAC in the addition was discovered initially operating together always.
While I did delete the co-opted vacuum, Sense has not discovered it yet, and at the same time it is not recording my Addition HVAC when it cycles on and off for heat only…
As you can see from the image, No data for this month (Actually since mid-September) and I live in Chicago where my addition HVAC (Air Handler only - gas heating element) is on multiple times a day every day since early November…
I deleted the devices after support would tell me to do so, so it could be re-learned even better. I seemed to get the same response each time. Like I was getting a response from a bot. I’m just frustrated with it all, as it used to work pretty well, where I was only occasionally disappointed and still recommended Sense to others, but now I am nearly 100% dissatisfied and considering just removing it from the panel as it’s like a stick in the eye reminding me how it isn’t performing with useful information.
I can understand the frustration here. I’ve shared your ticket with our lead of our support team so we can better handle these types of incoming support requests moving forward.
I’ve had the same issue when I updated the app. Everything was great and suddenly things changed. The toaster oven and electric kettle seem to have the same signature now. Was working fine before. Both upstairs and downstairs AC got merge. I haven’t kept track but at one point there was a button that would say " this device is not on now". It’s gone now.
You can add me to list of being an unhappy user of the Sense monitor. I don’t get more discovered devices but the ones that are identified are making a mess. For example, I had some lights identified and turned on notifications. It worked great for about a year. I turned off notifications and now another device becomes a light. The wattage is way off as well.The lights are about 57 watts the "new’ light bubble is now 95 watts and stayed on from 4pm to 10 am the next day. Of course I checked if the lights are off. My vacuum cleaner is now the dehumidifier. I had a can opener indentified and it still works correctly when you use it. My fireplace has a fan that was not identified. When the fan turns on it becomes the can opener now. My water heater 240 volts unit was identified but it is now a leaf blower. Never mind that the leaf blower is a motor using 120 volts and the water heater is a heating element.
Yes I reset the Sense unit a year ago and it will identify electric loads again but after a while it start making a mess.
I’m sorry to hear that there’s been a serious degradation of devices in your home and I’d like to pass this along to our Data Science team to take a look at.
In order to do that, I’m going to attempt to detail some of the devices that have degraded here, so if you have specific device names or labels from the Sense app, that would be a big help.
On first glance, it looks like the main issue here is device conflation with 4 specific devices that were working correctly in the Sense app.
Device Conflation
Lights → was working for a year, turned off notifications. Now, lights are being conflated with another unknown device. Previously, lights registered correctly at 57 watts and now are showing as 95 watts and displaying erroneously as ‘ON’ in-app.
Vacuum → was working, now registering in-app as dehumidifier.
Can Opener → registers when can opener turns on, but also conflated with undetected Fireplace fan device in the app.
Water Heater (240V) → Was identified correctly and working, but is now showing as “Leaf Blower” in the Sense app.
Based on the posts in this thread, your experience seems pretty typical.
Of course, we have no way of knowing how many of the units Sense has sold are working properly, because those folks don’t share information. And lots of people having problems, or having given up entirely, haven’t shared their experiences either.
I understand this frustration. I would hope that folks reach out to support. The investment in Sense is both money and time to identify and use. Losing all of that is just sad. Hoping that folks with continue to contact support and will get quicker and more detailized/personal responses.
This is the list I’m sharing with Support today. Can you confirm that I have the correct understanding for each of the devices you mentioned?
Device Conflation
Bedroom Lights → was working for a year, turned off notifications. Now, lights are being conflated with another unknown device. Previously, lights registered correctly at 57 watts and now are showing as 95 watts and displaying erroneously as ‘ON’ in-app.
Vacuum Cleaner → was working, now registering in-app as dehumidifier.
Can Opener → registers when can opener turns on, but also conflated with undetected Fireplace fan device in the app.
Water Heater (deleted a while ago, not rediscovered) (240V) → Was identified correctly and working, but is now showing as “Leaf Blower” in the Sense app. User deleted this device several months ago and it has not been redetected since.
Everything is correct except the lights I called them basement lights because they are two LED bulbs( the long tubes) and they are located in the basement.
Sense user here for over a year. Seems that bottom line is this device has been brought to market WAY before it should have been. Seems to reasonably identify the total connected load at a given time, but that’s about it. So many unidentified loads, especially the big ones that really use the most energy. Loads that you think you might have properly identified then later fail to show up even when you know they are on. “Light” loads that show far more wattage than any lights we own. The list goes on. Contacting support was mostly another waste of time. My “helper” (shall remain nameless) never could even tell me how the dreaded “OTHER” load wattage is arrived at, even though I asked at least 3 times in simple language. All I got was a bunch of regurgitated boilerplate non-sense, over and over. I would not recommend this mess to anyone - waste of time and money at this stage of development.
