I have two devices that stays on even though I have flipped all of my breakers, except the sense breaker.
Is it possible for a device to have power without being tied to a breaker, I wouldn’t think so but I’m not a electrician. Sense it connect two my 50amp oven breaker, which sense has already detected.
One could be your oven control board (clock and display) and the other could be your smart meter but you’ll need to find out if the meter is on asuuply or demand side.
Could be something else entirely but my rand draws a killer all the time
It depends on your local codes but I beleive certain devices under certain conditions are allowed to be tied to the incoming feeds. I think some fire monitoring equipment sometimes have these exceptions. Please someone else correct me if that’s wrong.
I’m thinking the same thing. There may be additional oven components that Sense has yet to detect (control board), or someone might have hung additional 240V devices on that circuit - 50A at 240V is a lot for just an oven.
I have a double oven but how much would the clock/circuit board pull?
It is a new house, built in 2017.
It comes on 9-12 times a day.
You don’t say how much power you are seeing for those two heats devices. Your control board is unlikely to look like heat to Sense. I’m also wondering if you have another sub panel in your house that has additional breakers. Newer houses often have multiple panels.
Are you sure the device stays on? Tripping a breaker may not be the same signal as “off” for the device. In some cases this means sense will keep the device on for a period of time …
I have to agree with @kevin1, somebody could have tapped that anywhere after the breaker. They could have tapped one or both legs, I’ve seen worse.
I’ve been reading about those smart meters also and how they can draw up to 250 watts.
I do have 2 break panels but they are located right next to each other.
I have figure out other devices by flipping the breaker and sense shows it off and on once I flip the breaker.
@samwooly1- I think it could be a smart meter installed by the energy company. I do believe I have a smart meter since it is a new home and I also have solar panels. What would be interesting is if I get charged the energy which is consumed by the meter. I don’t think I should since this was installed by the energy company.
Is the only evidence of this unknown device coming from Sense? If so, I’ve seen several instances where Sense reports a device on that is actually off. Don’t be 100% confident that the Sense reading is correct.
I’ve read about this because it wasn’t long ago we got our smart meter. Depending on where you live the burden can fall on the consumer or the power company.
I know people that are having to pay for it started an uproar because the electric company wasn’t allowing them to see the data.
I’m sure it would be easy to find out for you.
Where I live they charge us extra to opt out of smart meters.
I’m not sure if we pay for the electricity consumed but I’m sure we pay for it somehow with rate hikes. The only data they allow us right now is to see our total usage each day. I get a text message every morning for previous day use. I’m planning on comparing what they send me to what sense day I’m using to see how close they compare.
Not to derail the thread. But when you mention smart meters, what is the device you are talking about?
I’ve only read about smart meters, never seen one in person, but I always assumed that it was literally the a smarter version of the electric meter. So I’m curious of how a Smart meter would be detected by the Sense as wouldn’t that be upstream of where Sense detects power usage?
In a similar way, when you talk about the cost of the smart meter being the customer or power companies responsibility - I would generally assume that its the customers as the one power meter I’ve seen cracked open in person, the current sensors are the closest thing to the utility side of the meter before anything else happens.
Like you Ive also seen 1 opened. Only the one. I have read they are made both ways so I just going but what I have read. The smart meters are generally the digital meters instead of the rotor and dial type. And if they don’t come and read your meter anymore then you definitely have one.
I don’t think there is an “upstream” for sense in that way. Meaning that it can only measure what occurs on one side of the clamps. I’m not positive about this though. I’m going by a multimeter or clamp timing light where the clamp can go either way. I believe I read on here where people have had a clamp turned with the indicator turned the wrong direction. I’m assuming the arrows on the clamps are mainly for consistency where if they are both turned the same direction they somehow work better that way or if moved will be aligned the same when reconnecting.
Someone that knows more about it will hopefully share some knowledge here.
I’m more concerned about how the smart meters communicate. All I know is what I’ve read by searching.
When I say upstream from Sense I do mean things that are before the Sense clamps. And by before, I generally mean in the direction that power is flowing. Sense cannot measure power that doesn’t pass through its clamps. A smart meter is consuming its power before the Sense clamps, so there is no way for it to measure that power. You are correct, the labels on the CT clamps are merely for alignment to help speed up the install process so you get the windings going the same way.
The CT clamps for Sense are the same technology your Utility power meter is using. The main difference being that we can remove and move the Sense clamps. The Utilities sensors are built into the overall meter housing.
Think of the Sense just like your Utility meter, or your water meter. It only knows about whats going on that passes through the meter.
The reason I was asking about “what you mean by smart meter” is because it is not possible for the Sense to detect any power used by it, so I didn’t know if you meant some other kind of “smart” meter that the Utility gives you to install in your electrical panel.
The only way for the Sense to detect any power consumed by the Utility would be if your clamps were installed before your meter, which your Utility would very much frown upon if they saw evidence of tampering with things before your meter.
A smart meter is basically an electronic version of the former electric spinning-wheel based models, that also has a radio that connects / participates in a mesh network to propagate meter readings back to your utility. I have a GE model that is designed for bidirectional net-metering (solar on the roof). I think it uses about 3W of power, pre-house feed so unlikely that I pay for it.
@samwooly1, they communicate by creating a low bandwidth mesh with other meters (similar to Zigbee), that eventually connect to basestations on some power poles that eventually transmit back to the utility. But they send far less data back to the utility mothership (maybe one data point per 5 seconds) vs. Sense, so the network doesn’t have to be super fast. Landys + Gyr offers one communications system for utilities called Gridstrem - more info here:
As for Sense monitoring it’s own usage - just write off 4.7W or so of Always On to the Sense monitor.
Good explanation @ben, I see what your saying. The clamps would have to be before the draw would happen.
I’m in Texas and able to access the smart meter information through a website. I have compared and there seems to be no difference between sense and the smart meter. However, it is difficult to compare as it is not apples-to-apples since I have solar. I don’t get overall consumption data because when solar is producing it is not showing up as consumption. So I have to add up much I consumed and do they same for how much I produced from my smart meter (15 minute intervals) and then take the difference between the two. When I compare this to the difference between what I consumed and produced as report by sense, the numbers are almost exactly the same. 11.014 report by smart meter and 11 reported by sense.
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