I have a Volkswagen ID for electric vehicle and an electrify America home charger. Does anyone have information about how to identify this device with Sense?
Iām fairly new to Sense, but from what I understand, it identifies devices (like EVs, chargers) based on their energy usage signature and thereās nothing you can do yourself to identify it until it recognizes it (after which you can adjust things like the name, brand, location).
For me, it identified my Tesla as āElectric Vehicleā within the first few weeks.
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Your charger (official and better name EVSE: electric vehicle supply equipment ) doesnāt matter!
it is just a fancy/safety extension cord that provides 120/240 volt AC to your EV.
Inside your car is the onboard charger that rectifies the AC ā DC and than steps-up the voltage to what your EV is using (normally 300-500 volt DC)
That bunch of electronics has an electronic signature, it starts and ramps-up in a specific way to the max amount of energy it is allowed to pull from the wall.
Sense tries and detect that signature. It is not always successful with that.
Only a few onboard chargers have been identified: Chevy Bolt/Volt, BMW i3, and Tesla S/X/3
Sense has given a great article on EV detection some time ago.
Canāt find the link quickly
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Hereās the EV Detection article that @dannyterhaar mentioned.
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Thanks all for the feedback. I will wait to see if Sense can figure out my id.4 signature and will let everyone know when it does.
Pete
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I just got an Audi Q4 which is built on the same platform as the ID.4. Iāll be curious if we see any variation in discovery, (if any) of that platform. In my case, I chose ChargePoint for my home solution and its app is giving me some decent data on power usage all by itself, but it would be nice to have it all integrated into the Sense platform.
Ignore all the short charge cycles. I just got the car last week and the ChargePoint active on Saturday so lots of experiments and testing to see how things worked in various situations.
If it doesnāt show up after a few weeks, I may move the extra sensors I have currently on my A/C Air handler over to the Chargpoint instead.
EDIT: I just saw a response from Sense in another thread that ID.4 will not be discovered by Sense which means my Q4 will not be either since itās based on the same VW reference platform. At least I have the usage data from the ChargePoint as a reference.
Is it me, or has the whole Sense platform just stalled on making any forward progress or improvements in device discovery over the last few years. It just doesnāt seem to be delivering on the promise over the long term. Iām seeing lots of devices never discovered and an increasing number of mis-identified devices in real time.
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The power of marketing.
If you are a startup and have to rake in the bucks you aim for the stars while in reality you barely get off the ground. Isnāt that so with a lot of the new technology ?
Sense is definitely not the universal tool to track energy usage .
Now with hybrid solar inverters they are loosing out on another market segment that has changed since they started
Just an overview of Senseās funding rounds:
September 1, 2016
Sense raises a $14,000,000 series A roundJanuary 2017
Sense raises a $15,000,000 series A roundOctober 5, 2018
Sense raises a $18,000,000 series B roundJuly 2019
Sense raises a $10,000,000 series BApril 27, 2022
Sense raises a $105,000,000 series C
After how many years/rounds are you no longer considered a startup anymore btw ?
You would think they would have āsome budgetā in their to find more signatures of onboard EV chargers since 5% of the cars sold in the USA are now EVās and by far one of the largest energy users in a home.
I agree that Sense has to do a better job covering market needs, though we may not always like their choices. But based on market data theyāre not doing so poorly.
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Of that 6% EV market, they do detection for about 70% of the cars sold in the past few quarters.
US electric vehicle sales by maker and EV model through Q3 2022
Iām guessing they are watching these numbers closely to figure out where to go next. -
It looks like the next market they are targeting is the next gen smart meter market where the volumes are in the millions.
Iām hoping for a roadmap for the orange and green boxes someday because we know from a few web app slip-ups (and from their announced work with Schneider / SquareD on panels), that home batteries are in their future.
Looking at the global market in 2022:
Q: why did you base your answer on Q3 and not Q4?
Ford,volkswagen/audi,mercedes,hyundai have gained percentage in Q4 as far as I can see and both are not detected (yet) by Sense
I think my biggest frustration whenever this topic comes up is their response is virtually always the (itās become progressively more condescending with time) āyou just donāt understandā- read this blog post. Well, the blog post about EVās is over 3 years old- have they really done absolutely nothing new in that rapidly growing space? And if I look at the market share and market trend data linked above, they are already way behind the market trend. And they do not appear to be even remotely interested in updating their priority of what platforms they are going to focus on. Theyāre working on platforms that are all but abandoned (BMW i3).
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@dannyterhaar, thanks for the more recent and complete numbers. I just did a quick Google on the US / North America market, because Sense really hasnāt tackled international (outside of North America) grids yet.
Looking at Kelly full 2022 data, I donāt see that big of a difference - Sense still covers about 70% of the unit volume for all of 2022. And if I were them, I might aim for Ford next ?
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I share this frustration. I get the āstartupā thing. But having raised over $105M a year ago should give them the budget to accelerate solving some of these big problems.
I donāt think thereās been any meaningful updates in the past 1-2 years. Just a few minor UI changes in the app. Any request for new detection is just met with āitās hardā and they throw up their hands.
The EV problem doesnāt even have to be that hard. There are EV chargers that measure power usage. Just having an integration with one or two charger brands (even if the data rate isnāt to Senseās preference) could solve the problem for many users. But Sense doesnāt even want to put in the time for this relatively low-effort addition.
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