My name is Jay Basen. I have been a smart home hobbyist for over 25 years and have spent more than 12 years as a professional designing and programming smart home systems in homes as large as 75,000 sq. ft. I am now now retired from day to day programming and as a way to give back to the industry that I’ve enjoyed so much I have started writing on smart home technology. I have just finished an article on energy monitors, including Sense. I thought that people in the Sense community might find it interesting. You can find the article on the Residential Tech Today Magazine web site here: https://restechtoday.com/does-an-energy-monitor-really-add-value-to-a-smart-home/
After writing the article I replaced an almost 10 year old energy monitor in my own home with a Sense monitor. As I gain experience with the Sense monitor I hope to become a valued contributor to the community.
I also have a blog on smart home technology that might be of interest to people here. The blog is primarily targeted to professionals in the industry but I believe that a lot of the content is also relevant to homeowners and hobbyists. You can find the blog here: https://topicsinhomeautomation.blogspot.com/
I enjoyed the read very much and it was a tremendous amount of information
for me as I’m just starting out on this “hobby”, as the wife calls it.
I’ll bookmark the page and read it again.
Your panel is a very nice, clean setup. Mine won’t ever look that good but yours
inspires me to get mine cleaned up (electrician did a very sloppy job).
I didn’t understand ho you stated there was a way with sense to turn smart
devices on and off in the app. I don’t have very many smart devices but I
haven’t seen any way to do that.
How are you doing that, please explain?
Thanks for the kind words. I’m very glad you enjoyed the article. Unfortunately, that isn’t a photograph of my installation; it was a picture provided by the folks at Sense for the article. I didn’t purchase a Sense until after I had written the article so like you, I’m just beginning the process.
At this point I can’t control any smart devices from within the Sense app in my home. That statement was taken from research I did on the product but because I didn’t yet have Sense I wasn’t able to validate its accuracy.
That being said, I believe that any smart device that would offer control within the Sense app would have to be integrated through one of the Wi-Fi smart plugs that Sense supports; such as the TP-Link HS110. I am getting close to adding a few of those into my home for their support of power measurement so I’ll be able to validate that shortly.
In my own home, based Sense’s current capabilities, I don’t plan on controlling any smart devices directly through Sense. I have an extensive Crestron automation system that runs my home. The logic for all the actions my home takes is all programmed there. My plan is to integrate Sense with the Crestron system and to continue to let the Crestron system fulfill that role. The first examples will be to send notifications to my wife and my smart phones whenever our washer, dryer, and dishwasher finish their cycles. I did this with my previous energy monitor and we found it a great convenience. Right now I’m just, like many people, waiting for Sense to discover these devices.
I’m working on a 2nd article “Living with Sense” that I’ll put out a few months from now that will include my own personal experience with the product. In that article I’ll be sure to include an actual picture of my own installation.
You can also control other devices via other methods, such as Philips Hue lights via the Hue integration. This allows Sense to talk to your Hue hub for usage monitor cueing, but also lets you dim and toggle on/off.
