I’ve been using Sense about a month now and have been reading the community complaints about device discovery. I fully understand that device discovery takes time and that as the article stated you can’t “isolate” devices to learn them because the signatures vary when paired with other devices on a circuit. Also, a devices advertised wattage is a ballpark as many factors can make that fluctuate like age of the device, quality of components used/available at the time of manufacturing, etc.
Where I’m struggling to understand the device discovery though is with a heating system. Since it’s been cold enough my furnace (aux heat) has been running on our heat pump system. Despite regular occurrences like starting at 5am, and consistent electrical draw, Sense has still not identified the device. Seems to me that something like this that may not be directly identified, but causing regular usage should go into a sep category as opposed to “Other” so it could be identified by the user. Before you reference me to it, yes I’ve read about why you can’t train Sense and I understand that. I’m not talking about training, I’m talking about Sense learning from the community based on rhythmic cycling of a device - mostly of high power usage - that give a stable signature but not fully recognized. Maybe this falls into the training category, but I think it would be beneficial to have a pop out bubble for high power devices like furnaces, heat pumps, AC, and even full size office printers so these aren’t lumped with other. This would give a greater range of learning capabilities without going into the “training” aspect and still allowing Sense to learn from the ML algorithms.
This would also help the community of users see that Sense is discovering and recognizing a signature developing, just not clear enough source data to identify it. When lumping into a category of “Other” it’s not clear of Sense is picking up the device and doesn’t recognize it, or the signature isn’t stable enough to identify the item.
That being said, I love being able to watch the system build tho, it’s a great tool to help identify where you can reduce power consumption in the home. Thanks to everyone at Sense for a great product and their support. Had a question with signal checking after a reset, and got a timely response! Keep up the wonderful work and I know it will only get better!