This morning I was thinking again about the “Always On pie” and thought that some kind of layered “bar graph” would be very illustrating, but to your point, @andy, the EV charging has a slow ramp and I claim that with “VERY HELPFUL” human assistance, Sense has multiple ways of identifying this “pie”. My suggestion may be a bit more than some would be willing to go the distance but hear me out (Sense, are you listening??? @kevin1 may be a big community contributor but doesn’t speak for the company)
You start with EVERYTHING OFF. Then, incrementally, you start with the 240V breakers. These typically are for a SINGLE appliance, but not always. I would suggest starting with the ones that ARE for single appliances. After each one is enabled, I would enjoy a healthy dialog with Sense on the MODEL of the device and any feedback it may know from all the previous collections from the community on similar devices. When sense was ready for the next breaker, I would enable that one. I already know the VERY LARGE consumers. I just don’t know how often they turn on when I’m sleeping. But if Sense cannot capture those devices, even if they are enabled only one at a time, then my whole Human-assisted learning can go out the window. From my perspective of not being a data scientist, nor someone knowledgeable with other product in this field, I can only say that trying to find the “needle in the haystack” is/must be more difficult than being told. It’s the RANGE that just turned on. It’s a Kenmore AS32211KP Range. White. Six burner. Need more info?
Then comes the Mystery set of the “Always on”. Not too hard to isolate if you’re willing to take an hour and switch on-off breakers while having a beer. How? By doing the REVERSE.
Start with full-house on. OK, I see 1105w “Always on”. OK, so let’s pop that breaker. Ah, nothing changed. Super. Next? whoa. The 1/2 bath & Hallway just dropped 120w. OK Sense. Got that? Great. It’s interested. What’s connected? Humm, let’s go find out. Ah, TV, WiFi point, , UPS. That’s it. Turn it back on, you say? Certainly. (up goes 140w) Got that? great. Now off? Certainly. (down goes 140w). Need another round or two? OK. And remember, there are THREE devices there. If need be, let’s call them “Hallway Items (a group)” but DO NOT FORGET, there are THREE devices in that group and they are Sony TV, model BE12345, APC UPS model 54321 and a WAP, Ubiquiti HD67890.
And the process continues. In each case, we continue shutting off breakers until it’s all off (meaning the Sense break is the one you save for last). In my case, the Sense breaker is for a UPS that powers my server rack so I can keep my rack powered, but pull any energy draw so the house can almost hit 0w, with the only device powered being the Sense. In each case, we whittle those pesky 100-150w devices attached to various breakers into groups, with usually fewer than four items, ALL OF WHICH I CAN TELL SENSE PRECIOUSLY WHAT THEY ARE, and if that’s not enough, then I haven’t the foggiest idea how Sense would EVER decide what the device is from ML alone.
Does this lead to a full-identified home? No, not initially, but it breaks it down so the ML can be a LOT smarter from which to do the real cranking and analysis of each groups “signatures”. Statistically, it’s unlikely that each device in a group would remain constant, and I’m sure that overtime, small changes can be isolated, but I am not a data scientist.
As simplistic this method might sound, I FULLY appreciated that once each of these breakers get turned back on, Sense is now looking at say, 10 groups, all piled on top of each other. And so goes our helpful-human assistance. Perhaps. But I still believe that having the human identify the device, one by one, or the group contents, it must make the identification of the device from all the other inputs easier than trying to do it in the blind. That’s my premise. And, I guess until I am told otherwise, that’s where my input to ask for human-aided identification is rooted.