Discussion: Why can't I train my Sense?

No training is not on the list, but identifying your devices IS! And a big part of it.

It would be like buying a GPS device for your car for $300 and finding out it only had 40% of the map, and then they expected you to drive to the new areas so that the map company can learn about these new areas.
This happens, but the maps are 95% complete before this.
We are basically providing sense the data and paying greatly for the privilege

Ok so update on the HS110 (Energy monitoring plug from TPLink / Kasa)
The lack of how well the solution is thought through end to end continues to baffle me

Connection to HS110 via Kasa app is flawless (so good job with that). On / off commands work direct from sense too, solid job on the API.

Sense detects the device, I told sense what the device as well - great. Iā€™ve paid $25 to add to sense data - youā€™re welcome :slight_smile:

However what is REALLY annoying is the device shows as ā€˜Onā€™ when it isnā€™t actually functioning, itā€™s just the draw of the LEDs etc.

Easy fix for this would be to provide a Wattage threshold in the app to define what is on / off. If power is 0 - 3W, then the appliance shows as off. If greater than 3W then show as on.

I havenā€™t moved the plug yet to see if the
Dishwasher is remembered on my home sense, but I doubt it will be. Iā€™d like to be proven wrong though.

In all honesty what Iā€™ve just documented is how to buy a $25 energy monitor to help improve a $300 energy monitor.
It would have been cheaper to buy 10 individual plugs for the things I wanted to track!

Given Iā€™m getting nowhere, Sense isnā€™t willing to change its model, and itā€™s not discovered any new devices in the last 3-4 weeks how do I go about getting a refund?

@jamieeburgess,
Iā€™m not sure you understand all the cool info that will come out of your smart-plug integration.

  • The ā€œOnā€ in the device list, is the status of the HS110 (is the relay inside on or off to power your device). The number next to that is the current usage, though the Smartplug might show up in one of two different places in the device list based on what it is doing - either in the Always On list, or the Active list.
  • Over time Sense will separate our up to 3 different operating states for your Smartplug.
  • Always On - If the Smartplug detects that some amount of power is always flowing to the device(s) on the Smartplug (like 3W to keep the LEDs on) Sense will categorize that part as Always On associated with that device and group with Always On in the device list. See the example from my system below.

  • Idle - If Sense sees the power to a Smartplug as going back and forth between a fairly stable level and a larger varying level, it will label the lower stable value as Idle. You can see that my two furnaces are ā€œIdleā€ in the devices list above.

  • Active - the other mode - Sense doesnā€™t label as active, by thatā€™s what you will typically see in the bubble diagram. Sense tries to hide all the bubbles for Smartplug devices that are only in Always On. I have about 30 smartplugs (yes, Iā€™m over the limit, and recommend to others that you stay within the 20 Smartplug limit), but only a few active ones are showing right now. Youā€™ll notice that if you click on the bubble, it will also show the Always On value for that Smartplug device (in my case below - a cluster of gaming PC related stuff).

Bottom line is that there is a ton more Smartplug functionality beyond basic measurement that it seems you donā€™t realize is there. Feel free to ask some more questions on how to get the most out of your Smartplug investment. Occasionally this functionality gets out of whack for me (30 Smartplug bubbles show up, or I have a Smartplug that is On, but grayed out). Both are pretty easy to fix.

I agree to an extent. They havenā€™t ever claimed to provide 100% detection. They donā€™t provide any actual number which I think is a problem with marketing. This is something Iā€™ve brought up many times in the past.

I think in their minds if it detects a single device then itā€™s a success. While I do not expect anywhere near 100%, my expectations are somewhere in between.
Itā€™s misleading when there are screenshots showing specific devices detected on their website and the same in my home are not.
Yes, they are learning from our devices. The business plan is a little strange. They have to sell units to gather information. At the same time, buyers of the units expect device detection that requires selling more units.
Until they get more detailed and dare I say ā€œhonestā€ with marketing, people are going to continue to be disappointed.

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@jamieeburgess,

One more example of smart-plugs in action in the web app. Only smart-plug devices that are using power above Always On/Idle are visible. In the web app, you can see both the Active Power number and the Always On/Idle Power in for smart plugs that are in Active mode inside the bubbles. You seem to be overlooking some of the existing smart-plug functionality, that you think should be there.

ps: I have one device on a smart-plug, a Sony TV that has no discernible power usage when off (no Always On), even though it turns on with a remote, so some slight about of Always On power must be flowing.

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Nail on the head :slight_smile:

I think they are in the over promising and under delivering camp right now.

Couple that with the price tag - we all have a bench mark of expectation/quality (everyoneā€™s is different, and I agree I wouldnā€™t expect 100% but my bench mark would be to detect the big ticket items).

Whatā€™s REALLY annoying is I didnā€™t return the sense when I should have previously (within the window of returns) but instead bought in to the ā€œit will get better, just waitā€ message :frowning:

Iā€™m now out of the Amazon return window, so will see what Sense say, as Iā€™m afraid paying $300 and waiting, well actually itā€™s more like hoping as I have no proof that it will get better, is not something Iā€™m happy about.

These visualizations are great, and something a company spends time on after they nail the basics and core functions.

I just want to know when my dishwasher is actually running/On (not the current version of On, whenthe LEDs on the display are drawing 2W)
Threshold, Iā€™m surprised isnā€™t a thing already.

I appreciate your reply and Iā€™ll check out the other functionality on the web app tomorrow.

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Do you have your dishwasher on smart-plug ? If so, you should see the Always On vs active power for your dishwasher separate out in 24-48 hours. Not immediate. And the Always On may not be the same as Idleā€¦

I did some thought experiments about how to calculate Idle vs Active mode power based on the data coming from my smartplugs. Not so easy as a simple threshold.

It looks like Kevin has already hit on your other questions.

I can address this publicly for others to read: regardless of whether you purchased from us or Amazon, weā€™ll always honor our 60-day return policy. Just reach out directly to Support.

OK im a newly and I pre-apologize if this is a dumb questionā€¦ However, when I turn on a device and I see the meter immediately go up and see how many watts the difference is, I would 99.99% know that that is the correct device and can name it myself. WHY is it that sense will not let me name that device ?? why do I have to wait for sense to find it on its own which will take a month when I can start programming them right off the bat? I donā€™t see the difficulty hereā€¦ am I missing something? I love the sense product and it is made well, however this is a big issue that could be fixed simply. I understand sense wants to build their database etc. but egotistically I donā€™t care about the database I just want to monitor my own products etc. can sens make a version just for the user that would be able to do this?

HI @erik75 and welcome.
Not a dumb question, but a very common one.
The short answer to your question is that Sense does not support it.
See the below thread about with some expanded detail on how / why training is not something Sense supports at this time.

Probably question # 1 for new users. The short answer is thatā€™s not how Sense was designed to work. Itā€™s important to know that individual device signatures are all squashed together in the overall signature for your home, which consists of millions and millions of instantaneous voltage and current readings. There are monitoring systems that connect to each device and measure them individuallyā€¦thatā€™s how the smart plug systems work, but Sense was designed to watch the overall data and deduce individual device patterns from that. You canā€™t even work thru your home device by device, cycling them one at a time, because the stand alone patterns donā€™t look the same as the ā€œliveā€ patterns. Iā€™m not even sure that what you suggest is scientifically possible, but itā€™s not how Sense works.

You can actually play with that yourself, by turning off everything but one device, then cycling that on and off for a while. It takes a LOT of cycles, but scientific exploration is often slow. Eventually, possibly months of switching on and off, you may have a pattern. Then you turn on the whole house again, and repeat the on/off with the same device. You would see a quite different pattern once itā€™s detectedā€¦if it ever is. In many homes individual devices donā€™t get detected for months/years of usage and some never do.

The miracle is that Sense is ever able to extract individual devices from all the chatter on your home circuits, and in some homes it works amazingly well. In others, the ā€œnoiseā€ is so severe and the devices so variable that Sense never does detect them. Thereā€™s TONS of useful information spread thru the various blogs, and in particular the device detection one. Have fun. This is an adventure.

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Thank you for that great response! That kind of stinks in that I have to wait for it to learn. I guess our will help alot if I buy those smart plugs for each device but then it sort of defeats the purposeā€¦I hope maybe one day they can incorporate a manual wayā€¦

Just a note about the smart plugs - While Sense has said that an eventual goal is that they can use the smart plug data to help train the system, currently that is not in place and a smart plug will actually stop Sense from learning the device behind it.

Many people here are using the Smart plugs for devices that will most likely never be detected, such as always on devices, or TVā€™s / entertainment / computer centers. Things that donā€™t have clear signals for Sense to track.

If smart plugs are interesting to you, I do suggest the HS110 / HS300ā€™s, but just know that it isnā€™t about moving them around to help train Sense. Its just overriding the system and essentially forcing a detection on an otherwise un detected, or partially detected device.

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Be mindful about smart plugs. If you have a device that has been detected by Sense before using a smart plug and then you use a smart plug for it, this can cause a skewing of your data. There is a way to tell Sense to combine the smart plug with something already detected but as @ben stated, most of us use them only for devices that are not and likely never will be.

I agree, but for many kinds of devices (including 100% of the ā€œalways onā€ devices and many/most ā€œramp up and downā€ devices), smart plugs are the only it can track. For other devices, many people get results but you do have to be patient.

As @andy and @samwooly1 suggest, using smart-plugs is more about getting power info for device that are nigh-impossible to detect today, than speeding up the detection.

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Their return time is something Iā€™ve suggested be extended to something like 180 days. Two months isnā€™t long enough in my opinion.

@jamieeburgess
Reach out to support with this exact problem you ha e since you purchased through Amazon and see if they can help you out in any way. If itā€™s not been too terribly long since purchased, I would be surprised if they werenā€™t helpful.
I do disagree with many about the price tag. At $300, itā€™s pretty cheap when I have handheld multimeters that cost almost the same and iPhones are $849
Yeah, I know, phones do more.

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