Disappointed in device discovery

Identifying Devices in Your Home
81

You can mimic this at 1 hour resolution using export and a few nice features of Pivot Tables in Excel.

  • Download a month or day
  • Create a pivot table with:
    • DateTime as the rows
    • Device Names as the column
    • Summation as kWh
    • Filter set to “Total Usage” (if you are looking at net usage, include “Solar Production” in the filter as well)
  • Once your have created the Pivot Table, add a second “kWh” to the summation
  • Rename the new column in the PivotTable as “Running Total”, “Meter Reading”, or whatever you want for accumulated energy usage.
  • Then left click on an entry in that column to change it to a running total vs. DateTime. Depending on your version of Excel, the route to “running total” selection will be different.

I created this one from my September hourly download in about 5 minutes (after looking up how to create a running total in a pivot table):

Pivot Table 1-hour data from Sep 01, 2018 to Oct 01, 2018.csv (12.1 KB)

82

But I need minute resolution.

83

When will device detection improve via IoT integration? Did I miss the webinar summary posting? I don’t have a $200 Phillips light but I do have LOTS of devices that know exactly when they are on and off. Sounds like it’s the solution for smart device detection, right? Can we ask for one manufacturer a month? Is that reasonable? Maybe NEST thermostats then WEMO then LiftMaster, Pentair, etc. in 6 months you could make a lot of user’s experiences wholely improved!

84

@Grandpa2390 you can use my C# API wrapper to get that data :slight_smile:

2 Likes
85

@frankwin.hooglander
Sweet! Thanks!

I downloaded it. but I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I remember a long time ago I found where someone had created a program to gather and record information from the Nest thermostat, and it was an app that would run on Splunk. Is this something like that?

I’m running Macintosh btw.

I’m researching this, but you will probably respond before I find the answer. Programming is not my strong suit. I wish it were.

edit8: well I’m at my wit’s end. Maybe a good night’s sleep will give me a fresh approach at REST APIs or whatever it is I need to get your software running. :frowning:

1 Like
86

I keep trying to compile different things, but I am getting errors that I can’t resolve. ugh.

88

You’ll need Visual Studio to run that.

You can also install Postman and use the attached config file to get some data that way. (just remove the extra .xml extension that I had to add to be able to attach the file here).Sense API.postman_collection.json.xml (14.6 KB)

In the Get Authentication Token request you’ll have to add your Sense email + password

89

I’ve got visual studio. nothing will compile. I’m getting errors about the using command being invalid.

I’m missing a dependency, but I can’t figure out what it is

90

You’ll probably just have to restore the Nuget packages.

1 Like
91

Fascinating thread, but what does this have to do with “device discovery”. Sense is supposed to be able to do that for the large market, not just the programmers among us.

Might I suggest a separate thread for people developing their own layers and apps on top of Sense?

92

It’s relevant to the thread.

@frankwin.hooglander Thanks for trying. But I don’t think it’s going to happen for me. I installed Nuget package extension, and tried to open it up in postman and got no results.Thanks for trying to help me, I don’t want to keep wasting your time. A person like me needs an executable. lol.

93

So after over a month of silence from support on my ticket opened in early October for poor auto discovery, I requested an update on the status and to be honest was quite disappointed by what came back. Back in October I was told that they could see the devices in the logs that were never being discovered, they asked for all the specific model numbers and details which I provide and then yesterday I was told that my poor Auto Discovery issues are only a “medium priority bug” and I might see something in late January. The replacement monitor has been installed for 2-1/2 months (yes I had to start all over again, Yeah!) I have a grand total of 4 devices that are not Hue lights discovered.

It seems the priority is new features vs fixing the foundations of the product that are still not working as advertised which is quite disappointing. At this point I guess I’ll just have to accept that it will likely never work any better than it is now, will always only show a portion of my power use (often double now with the Smart Plug double-counting Always On issue) and move on and never recommend this solution to anyone else.

It’s extremely disappointing that their attention has focused on these new features when so many people continue having disappointing results with the foundations (auto discovery) of the product.

94

I can’t speak for the exact issues you’re referencing without looking at the support tickets, but yes, some bugs receive higher priority than others. Our dev and data science teams are small and priorities get shifted around occasionally as other issues arise. Some bugs break more than others and those must receive priority. We also have to constantly assess the reach of a bug. Priority tends to be given to bugs affecting the widest set of users over isolated, device-specific issues.

I hear your complaint about new features. There’s always a balance to strike between fixing what’s current and building stuff anew. That’s not unique to us (I had some banging-my-head-on-the-table moments this weekend with some audio software that got updated without fixing certain issues first). We’re always keeping that division in mind and re-assessing what deserves resources. Still, even while we’ve been building new app features, we’re still pushing out bug fixes (see the three patches to v23 as an example, but many more happen behind the scenes that never receive release notes). All that said, discovery is more in the realm of the data science team. While the software team has been working on new app releases, the DS team is constantly focused on improving device detection. While they certainly have their hand in the app side of things, their work on the core functions of the Sense app has in no way been hindered by recent app updates. It’s worth mentioning too that fixes here do not come easy. It’s not a simple matter of the DS team flicking a backend switch and suddenly devices can start popping up. Detection fixes require a lot of attention and a lot of data. Those two things can take a fair amount of time. Support could have been more transparent about this upfront and I’ll be sure to pass your feedback along to the relevant teams here.

Lastly, in many cases, newly released features have been all about improving device detection. Philips Hue and the smart plug release immediately come to mind here. These took a ton of dev resources, but they’re giving us fantastic data to improve device detection for everybody. We already have a lot of ground truth data rolling in from smart plugs and the DS team can’t wait to get their hands on more.

Sorry for the incredibly lengthy response, but I get the frustration. Most of us here use Sense as well and deal with the same bugs. Luckily, device detection issues as bad as yours are rare, but they do happen. Homes vary and devices vary and these can really get in the way of a good device detection experience. If you’d like to discuss further, shoot me a PM.

1 Like
95

I’m new here and my sense is less than 1 month running (i bought it over 18 months ago but just had it installed after some renovations so that it didn’t have to start all over again at some point in the renovation. So, in the 2-3 weeks it is running it finds 2 dehumidifiers and a sump pump in my basement. It also found a water boiler/kettle in my kitchen. SERIOUSLY? The house is full of run of the mill commercial appliances and brands - dishwasher, refrigerator, washer./dryer, stove, NEST devices, other network devices (yes i turned on network detection and bupkis has been found). Is this what I’m supposed to be all excited about?? I just can’t imagine that with households all over that the standard household appliances can’t be identified. I also have a plug in hybrid car and you would think that would be a very unique and strong draw that could be identified when i plug it in every night and it juices up the batteries. But not… nothing… I live in a 3500 sq ft house and it finds a bathroom light fixture, 2 dehumidifiers, and a tea kettle and sump pump?? Seriously??

1 Like
96

If you are looking for help determining why some of your specific devices haven’t been found, you should post details about the particular device and maybe some folks here can shed some light on what the challenge is.

Your complaint has been covered ad nauseum in this thread and others. Sense has a generous 60 day return policy, so if support can’t help you out, why don’t you return it?

97

He noted that he bought it 18 months ago

98

Ah, I overlooked that. Well, since he’s stuck with it, he should post the types of appliances he’s hoping to have detected. If it’s all high efficiency variable speed drive stuff, he might be SOL, otherwise, probably just need to give it more time.

1 Like
99

And he’s had it installed for 2 weeks. Device detection takes time. With just 2 weeks of data sense hasn’t had much time to identify electrical signatures. Why didn’t you install it 18 months ago when you bought it? Give it some time and devices around your home will be identified. The device detection FAQ explains the process in more detail.

1 Like
100

I’m new here also, my sense went online on Dec 05 2018… I’m now up to 5 absolute confirmed devices and 2 mystery devices that I haven’t been able to confirm… being an energy consultant by trade, I do understand just how much work detection can be… I’ve had a few issues:

  1. solar calibration wouldn’t complete, had to get support to force it…
  2. my initial signal check got stuck, support had to step in again and force it…
  3. my device wouldn’t update from the initial firmware, and once again, support had to force it…

once these things got square, I began finding devices… I don’t get one everyday… but it has helped me realize the energy I use… heck, you may have even seen my post about my xmas tree drawing over 200watts, it was enlightening (mind you, my tree was not detected, I was watching the “Now” readings and noticed that my tree was an energy hog)… it encouraged me to get a plug-in watt meter (kill-a-watt like device)… I’ve done what I could to help others here in the forums and I’ve tried to not bug support to the point they would be helpful without labeling me as a pain… now, with that background said, if I may:

Sense is doing a lot that we don’t see… if you can give a moment of imagination, try to understand that in my simple & humble 1200sqft home in central california, I have 2 college boys, my teen daughter, my wife and I… we have nearly 50 devices on my network at any given time… some of those are battery powered (plugged in while charging) and some are always plugged in… besides those, I have an electric range & oven… a frig, a freezer, washer & dryer, TVs, and other sorted appliances… each of these devices/appliances have cycles on the electrical grid within your home… to make it worse, these are not clear and cut cycles… they happen at all times of day, some at one time and others are littered across the minutes of the day… so I have somewhere in the neighborhood of an estimated 150+ items each affecting my household “grid”, and each being sought out during the 86499 seconds of the day… then, its trying to watch my network over each of those 86400 seconds in the day and see if there is some correlation between a device logging in and a particular signature on my “grid”…

then, if all that wasn’t enough, lets say the combined Sense customer base is 1000… so that’s not just 86400 seconds from my house, its 86400 seconds x 1000 and that’s just 1 day… there’s more… let’s say those 1000 homes have 5 different brands for half of their devices… that’s really making it much harder to see a particular device somewhere in the noise of the AC “grid” within these homes… I could go on and on with this… after reading through some of the issues others were having, and trying to develop my own expectations, I really began trying to wrap my brain around the nearly endless possibilities, including the fact that we are all over the country with different utility companies and just as many differences in line quality from those companies…

now, as a customer, I do feel your pain… I’ve been at odds with it… you plug it in and expect to just start finding all the devices in your home… but it doesn’t work that way… I can say it is learning your home, but it will take time… I could say it would be a lot better if we all owned the same exact devices in our homes, but that’s never going to happen… it will get better, with time… there are just so many differences, I could just imagine the mountains of data that Sense staff have in their computers, just trying to sort all this out… you could even say this is worse than rocket science, lol…

anyway, I do hope this helps some understand the issues… to say this process is complicated doesn’t do it justice…

4 Likes
101

Yes, I know it’s complicated and I certainly appreciate that. I will give it at least 2 more months to find a few more devices. But my point was - how many people have LG televisions and LG washer/dryers? (hint, a lot). I see a lot of people in these posts who mention LG televisions being identified and other common brand appliances both on and off my network (yes i enabled network detection too). My EV I hope gets identified too - a big power user every day for the daily charge. I know it takes time so i’m hoping for more to come. To echo the comments above - my solar didn’t complete correctly either - support had to “push” it thru. Support had to “push” the updated firmware too - which makes me wonder if other things maybe didn’t happen so I opened a support ticket. I am remaining positive and looking forward to “things to come” Fingers crossed.