The average person saves $500 on their car insurance by switching to… They quoted me over $1000 more per year, I didn’t switch.
I get ad’s saying the average person saves $30,000 by switching to solar. I couldn’t save that even if they gave me the panels and installed them for free. It’s not very sunny where I am.
9% might not be totally accurate today as the cost of electricity for most has gone way up. My bill hasn’t gone down, but my usage has. I installed a portable AC unit, but was able to cut usage elsewhere enough to not see any increase in total usage.
Did Sense lower my usage? No, but it gave me the insight into my usage to make the cuts. I had no idea why my usage was so high, now I know. Detections are only a very small part.
Wow - a lot to unpack in this thread. And towards the end it gets a bit argumentative, but some thoughts:
marketing a product - the point is to get people to buy it, so a slogan or caption of “if you’re really lucky, live in a basic home without many devices, and overspend egregiously on electric without paying any attention - then Sense could save you a lot!” Probably wouldnt sell too many. And I think we all want more users because that should ultimately feed more data and improve detection. So I personally will give a pass on that front.
back to basics / detection / smart plugs - i think this is really the crux of the thread and a continuing issue. I’ve got inconsistent devices all over. My dryer, for example, is electric, runs basically the same cycle most days, and when it’s on the bubbles bounce back and forth between knowing what’s on and “other”. It’s cycled thousands of times since i got Sense and it’s a relatively new 2020 GE high efficiency model. Come on guys - get that stuff right. I’m in a low noise environment (330w always on, usually around 500w during dryer cycles excluding the dryer). Smart plugs are great, but the thing i bought didnt say “hey for this to work you’ll need to buy $200 in smart plugs too”.
@JustinAtSense - you mentioned many users just want to save money - and you couldn’t be more right on that. I would encourage you to remember that a major way of doing that is dependent on device detection so users can see what the culprits are clearly.
Also I’m not a TOU user, and without TOU the savings potential from Sense is dramatically limited without more accurate device detection.
picking from home details devices when a device is discovered - would this be simple, perhaps not. However it’s super possible. It would take a little time and effort to get the mechanics right, but ultimately I’d put my developer hat on and ask “what’s the point?” If it’s just to avoid duplicate data entry - there are probably some half way between options like a widget on detected devices to select from Make/Model info from home inventory. Personally - don’t think this is worth the dev time.
Some Suggestions -
A) there was a thread about refrigerators and putting them on smart plugs to help the sense team. PLEASE DO THIS STUFF MORE. There’s a whole host of people here happy to help out IF it actually improves detection.
B) Support the community that feeds you the best data: Talk to your partners over at Kasa and get a discount on a 10 smart plug package for Sense users (Just an idea).
C) build right into the device screen a “check this box to share this device’s data with Sense” at least for smart plug connected devices.
Final thought- Sense is a cool toy. Mine hasn’t detected anything in 4 months or so, plenty out there to find, i’ve caved and basically use smart plugs now because Sense didnt/doesnt work as a good device detection program. It’s great for real time Solar info though which is my primary use.
Thank you for the thoughtful contribution here. I’m going to address a few of these as best as I possibly can .
I get it, as do folks here. A lot of the work that’s gone on here is unfortunately not super evident to users.
This includes a fairly large effort to make Sense easier to integrate with in the future, and we have some plans and things we’d like to do in the coming future.
Anecdotally, quite a few Sense users that have had their monitor for several years have noted how much detection has improved since they first installed their Sense. We still have a while to go, but we’re optimistic that we’ll be able to continue to make significant consistent progress here.
I’ve passed this feedback along to our team - FWIW we’ve attempted to reach out to KASA several times and haven’t been able to connect in the past. I believe we’re going to try reaching out to them again.
@rlavorgn , let’s enjoy the 13 buck special on the KP125s right now. That’s the lowest I have seen TP-Link power monitoring plugs. Still pricey for 10, but much better than when H110s were going for 49$
I have a Dryer, not detected, and also see the spikes up and down when running.
However, I think you are missing that this is actually happening. Just like an oven or induction cooktop, the units so pulses the heating elements off and on to hit the desired drying temp.
The motor might always be running when on but the heating elements are not. That’s why you are seeing all the spikes in you total usage.
@Beachcomber understood, and that would be a great hope for a future detection of the rest of it - except it used to be way more accurate. I’d estimate the accuracy on dryer detection dropped off in about July - so it was good for a few months, then got sporadic.
Also - it’s a plug type that doesnt fit the smart plug options so cant do that
What I keep seeing is Sense support personnel agreeing that Sense marketing is a little over the top but then still defending that marketing. New customers, buying under the current marketing efforts, will continue to experience the same misunderstandings and frustration that many of us have and do. I agree with Beachcomber, perhaps Sense should be using the phrase, “Results not typical,” used by weight loss meds and services. I mean really, can sense actually do what is advertised in the majority of cases? The Typical case? If not, and you don’t call out the exceptional outlier results as such, you may be running awfully close to false advertising, (especially when it comes to the subject that we discussed in private messages).
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