Can a smartplug like the Kasa HS110 be used to help with learning and then be moved to another device.
I have a number of devices that have not been detected and that I have no practical reason to put on a smart plug. Things like my router, my NAS, my TV, etc.
If I buy a smartplug, run one of these devices on it, wait for Sense to identify it, can I then move the smartplug to another device & expect Sense to correctly ID the device.
Or, as I fear, Sense really just gets data from the smartplug and as soon as it is removed my device will be lost.
Thanks in advance.
I think I found my answer here.
It looks like if I have a dozen unidentified devices I’ll need to buy a dozen smartplugs and leave them connected.
Maybe someone will correct me but that appears to be the situation.
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You got it… Though you might want to get just a few smartplugs first and try one for a few days on all your devices of interest in the house to see which ones would product the most useful data.
I think the HS300 can help a bit if you have many devices in one location. It’s a power strip where each plug is a smart plug. This would be easier to manage in an entertainment center or network closet instead of having a ton of individual HS110s or KP115s.
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Unfortunately not. Despite Sense’s marketing, it can only learn certain kinds of devices and only under certain circumstances. The Kasa monitors are an expensive workaround for some of the devices Sense can never learn, and they provide no teaching to Sense. So think of Kasa as a permanent augmentation to Sense for specific devices.
That still leaves a huge gap, all the devices Sense can’t learn and for which there are no Kasa monitors (mainly US 220v devices).
So, there are those devices Sense can learn, those devices that Kasa monitors for Sense, and those for which there still is no solution yet.
HS300 is selling for $54 on Amazon, which is $9/outlet…much cheaper than the KP115 for $22. That said, the earlier suggestion from Kevkranen to check each device you are thinking about for actual draw, then monitor only the “interesting” ones, can save you a bundle. Many office devices (which Sense doesn’t do anything with) draw so little that they simply aren’t worth monitoring individually.
In my area, with power at $0.17/kwh, a device drawing 10 watts (and many of the devices draw a fraction of that) costs under $15/year, not worth the cost of an individual monitor. That’s why I’ve used a single HS110 and a power strip in the office for one aggregate number.
BTW, to check out your devices quickly and simply, I recommend a Kill-a-Watt meter, much faster and easier to use than a smart plug.
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Kill-a-watt is a good suggestion, and I have one that I use every now and then to measure consumption. But, to use one of @kevin1’s favorite terms, a “traveling smartplug” really provides a better picture of a device’s energy consumption because of the power meter display Sense gives you for consumption over different time periods. Looking at a kill-a-watt reading a few times doesn’t provide the same picture as a 24-hour graph of consumption. Obviously this depends on the device, though.
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