Ben. Did you forward my emails and posts to Mike Phillips as per my request? I’m waiting to see what his response is going to be. Please advise.
Thanks.
Ben, I concur with Howard. I am experiencing similar issues, 23 days and all issues point to the Sense back office problems. The current ticket is 80895. This is the third ticket, confusion on ticket assignment at your end.
The responses to the tickets appear to me to be too vague, far too slow and lack transparency regarding Sense problems.
Kevin. In your prior post you said there is no other device that does what sense does. Upon some research I found a device called Smappe home energy monitor sold by Amazon. They also have a pro verison but only sold by the company not amazon. Check out this device and let me know what you think. I sent that company a email with some questions. If it looks good maybe I’ll buy it and have it installed in conjunction with sense and compare the two devices. Check it out and let me know what are your thoughts about it.
Thanks
I took a quick look at the Smappe web page and see a major flaw in their system. They measure voltage only from a 120VAC outlet. That means they are measuring from one leg to ground and have no idea what the other leg is running. How can they accurately come up with wattage if they don’t know what voltage is on the other leg of power? If you go to the page on the Sense app which shows you both legs you will see that they normally don’t run at the same voltage and the one drawing a lot of power typically has a much lower voltage. How big an impact this will have is subject to what is going on in your home, but it has a definite impact on accuracy.
When I first looked at smappee, I though it was just another whole house monitor and the pro version did six individual circuits. I also saw that they only have one voltage leg monitor and that the pro version required a subscription. I didn’t look into them any further because of those shortcomings and because they were european based. I do see they they are able to pick out the bigger appliances like sense and the pro version is what I’ve been recommending Sense add as a feature. Their app is more feature rich with the same features we’ve all been asking for from Sense. I’m sticking with Sense for now but I’m interested to see what you report if you do add a smappee alongside your sense.
Howard. Looking at my sense app I have phase A 330 watts @ 121.6 volts and phase B 1250 watts @ 121.2 volts. There is not much of a difference in voltage from phase A and B. As it stands sense is not very accurate for me anyway. Example: sense shows the compressor in my freezer to draw 79 watts but I confirmed utilizing a handheld meter is more like 100 watts. That is a big difference. If all my appliances are misread like that sense is totally inaccurate. Maybe the best way is run sense and smappee at the same time and see which one is more accurate.
Does your freezer have a fan to cool the coil and/or a fan to circulate the air inside? If so, Sense has probably only discovered the compressor so far and not the fan(s). There are reports from others that sense is sensitive enough to be able to pick up the led lighting inside their fridge. From what I’m reading about smappee, you can’t expect to get any better than what you get from sense now.
The compressor is drawing 100 watts with out the fan. The fan draws about 9 watts. If sense is just reading the compressor by itself than it’s off by about 29 watts. That’s just one appliance, start adding up all the other appliances, along with pool motors, AC units, etc. that sense could be miss reading. I just realized I have a set of CTs installed on my mains for my home automation system that gives me power consumption. I never thought to compare them with sense. I’m going to pull up the program and check the readings on that and compare it to sense. I assume they sould be the same give or take a few watts.
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Ben. Second request for an update. Are you still on board with us. I hope the pressure did not get to you causing to you leave, or stop posting. Did you forward my emails and posts to Mike Phillips as per my request? I’m waiting to see what his response is going to be. Please provide a official response to my request. Once again, thanks for all your help and support. I have hope and faith that you are the correct person to help all of us with our unresolved issues and problems.
Kevin. In regards to the smappee I’m waiting for them to send me a price quote of the pro. Here are the technical specifications of the pro version.
Measurements: V,I, cosΦ, active, reactive and apparent power
Voltage input: 3-phase 3 or 4 wire, or single phase
Current inputs: 9 inputs for custom CT’s (50A, 100A, 200A, 400A, 800A)
Non-intrusive load detection and monitoring on all inputs
Power supply: separate auxiliary
Power input: 100/240V,50-60 Hz, 5W max
Communication: Ethernet, USB (for Wifi or 4G/LTE modem dongle), Bluetooth, 433MHz
Dimensions: 130x130x35 mm
Weight: 300 gr
Safety: conforms to UL/IEC/EN 61010-1 Ed3 2010, CAT III
EMC: conforms to EN 55022 (Class B)
Well at least your voltage and wattage are linked in the correct direction. Don’t know how long you have had your unit but I had similar issues with the wattage not reading as much as a fridge was actually pulling. After about three months another model developed for that fridge that was spot on.
I’ve been looking at Smappee a bit more and it’s quite feature rich. One thing that interests me is multi-panel installation. Sense says you need two sense devices and two accounts for two panels. Smappee, however, sells a y-cable. This y-cable combines two CT sensors into one. Two y-cables at about $13 and two additional CT sensors at $70 and you can monitor two 200 amp panels. Of course, current is combined for the two legs being monitored and you are only checking voltage and frequency of one leg but you have the convenience of using only one device and one account to monitor both panels. I e-mail Sense support asking if a y-cable is a possibility.
I’m interested to hear what info you receive on Smappee Pro. I really think Sense needs to look at a Pro version of their hardware as well.
I’m still sticking with Sense at this time because they are a US based company and because I think they’ll quickly get to where we want them to be with features and increased device detection and accuracy.
Welcome Ben. I hope we didn’t scare you off already. 
I wish Sense would put their device detection efforts on hold and instead focus their efforts on:
- Allow 2 Sense units to function under a single master account (including one unit being dedicated to Solar)
- Allow connectivity flexibility, such as allowing using y-cables with multiple CTs for multi panel installs
- Get the web app released
- Address accuracy issues with “daytime dip or peak” for solar customers
- Be more active on this forum, including receiving some feedback from Mr. Phillips on some of the core issues that we have repeatedly been asking about.
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Agreed. I’ve got +/-20 appliances identified (including, to my surprise, the recent discovery of our low-draw fridge and a waffle iron), but what I’ve wanted most these past few months are many of the things Peter has listed.
Nice to see that you have 20 plus devices, I only have 7. Of the 7 devices only 5 are accurate. I assume sense is smart enough to chew bubblegum and walk at the same time. That being the case why can’t they work all of these at the same time. If needed, with the amount of money that they profit from all of us hire more engineering staff and tech support team members. They should not have put this product on the market before it was free form the device detection problems and other bugs that cause all of us users headaches. From what I see, this product is not working as designed or advertised and sense should be putting their main efforts on that as a priority. Sorry if anyone feels different but that’s my feed back and opinion.
How long have you had your device installed?
I asked you to provide screenshots and install photos last week so the community might try to help you. I’ve seen nothing but persistent and unnecessary badgering of the community rep who’s only been on the job for a couple of weeks.
I think it’s maybe time you either reign in your expectations or return your Sense and move on.
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Hi all. Not scared off at all! 
@peter & @NJHaley, thanks for the suggestions. I know the team is hard at work addressing 3, 4 & 5. I’ll be around the forums regularly to make sure that your feedback is heard and that we are communicating updates to you all.
@gregjwheeler27, I’m sorry that you’re frustrated. Making sure that Sense detects more and more devices, and that users are having a great experience are definitely our priorities! As time goes on Sense is able to detect more and more devices because of the data it receives and because of the hard work of our team. Your concerns and the concerns of other users are not being disregarded in any way. As our technical support specialist, Alex, said, our data science team is looking at specific issues that you have been having. I know you have heard this already, but it is important to remember that Sense is a learning device. That means the longer you have it connected and the more information it has, the more devices will appear. Some devices are easier than others to detect, but this process is happening! Thanks for your patience and feedback.
1agkirk2, sorry that you’ve felt that way about support! I saw that you were corresponding with Zach on Friday. Is your issue resolved?
Nick. I did not send you screen shots because the sense support team log into my device and told me that my monitor is working fine with no issues or problems. They also told me my issues were above them and the engineering science group needs to correct the issues I’m having. Maybe your ok purchasing a product that don’t work as advertised but I’m not. As far as Ben goes show me one post where he has provided any positive support or help. I have, and other users have a few emails to him and not even a response back form him. I apprecate all your help but what I do with my device is not your concern unless you are employed by sense. If sense is going to sell this product to average home owners like me who are not very tech savvy then they need to deal with our feed back and concerns.
Partially, still no devices recognized and the Mains power sometimes shows
negative value in one leg at night. I’ll give it more time.
Alan Kirk GMail