I received my first sense compatible plug yesterday and I got currently have it plugged into before a surge protector that is powering a small switch, a PoE switch that’s powering 9 PoE cameras and a coax amplifier. Its showing 43 watts which I expect it to go up at night when the IR lights are activated. None the less.
My Always on bubble is currently at 263w (same as before the plug) and I do realize its estimated on the last 48 hours. But I have 43 watts… which now shows up in a different bubble and its not duplicating wattage. Ive even see it where it says everything is off other than the kasa kp115 plug and the always on bubble and my total wattage is 306. Would my other bubble right now be the 43 watts if I wasnt using the smart plug?
Then If plug this into my surge protector that has my TV/ modem/ router/ firewall/ xbox/ hubs/ stereo … and my TV is detected by NDI which I am sure that it is because if the power is out and I’m running off a generator. My TV still shows up as a bubble even though no power is going thru my mains. Will this duplicated the power usage for the TV?
I think the answer is that there is some double counting with a smartplug. That’s why Sense gives you additional insight about Smartplug and DCM devices inside the Always On device to enable you to figure out the Unknown Always On.
BTW, my PoE switch has a very similar profile to yours - pretty much 39W of Always On and 0 dynamic power usage. If I had my switch on a single outlet Smartplug, I would redeploy it to a device with more dynamic power usage, and just manually enter a 39W Always On switch entry into the Always On list. But I have my switch on a 6 outlet HS300.
The always on and other bubbles are extremely confusing. The other bubble will NOT show usage that is not always on if the total of your current total undiscovered usage is lower than your average usage over the past 48hrs.
The other bubble only shows current usage that has been undiscovered that exceeds your always on usage.
The smart plug will report it’s own bubble unless it’s in standby, once your smart plug determines the average on wattage of the plug it will additionally be duplicated in your always on bubble.
My PoE switch is a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch max ES-16 which was it will do 150w of PoE… But then it also says that is also the max amount Power the switch can use. Then my other switch is just a little 8 port prosafe gs108 is for the jacks in the walls. As I was typing the last post from work… I was like Ill just turn the kasa off and see what the bubble does… Well, without the coax amp. Apparently, I have no internet.
Also, I really want to put this on my deep freezer and one on my fridge. IF… I have a power outage for a few seconds and Im asleep or out of town. Will the plug auto turn back on ? Are these reliable enough to have your modem on it for the same reason?
Also once you have all your always on devices defined, will they all show up as different bubbles… Or are some of the uses using a bunch of smart plugs?
My PoE switch is a USW-24-PoE with 5 access points hanging off it. And I have my coax amp on another outlet of that HS300, so I have that outlet configured in Sense so I don’t accidentally turn that one off from the app
Based on everything I have seen, TP-Link Kasa smart plugs come back in the state they had when the power went out - so suitable for freezers and modems. The Wemo Insight comes back off (always).
I think your last question is about manually entered Always On device data ? The majority of my device-level Always Ons come from smart plugs, with only a few entered manually - see the example below. Only the Floor Heater (x5) thermostat was manually entered. And the Sense Energy Monitor was added automatically by Sense.
On # 3… I am mainly talking about the bubbles. I’ve seen a few screenshots where some people have tons of bubbles… like modem, router, tv box, Alexa. Like every device that’s normally in Always on- has its own bubble
Also if I put the plug where my TV is also plugged in which is detected by NDI, then I merge my TV wattage (200w) with the smart plug which would also have the 200w for the TV…. Will the device be reading an extra 200 watts/ double reading the TV?
Example, my main pump is currently using a total of 25w, sense has demined it always uses 12w. I have no idea how or why Sense determined 12w as the always on as it always uses 25w, is always on (except for a min or two every now & then with network issues (router reset) and is the only thing that has ever been connected to that specific plug. But that’s besides the point. The bubble still appears if my plug is only using 25w.
If I wanted I could set the device standby wattage to something like 26v and the bubble would only appear if it was using more than 26w.
I think of standby wattage as more of a bubble appearance threshold, not sure if that’s the best way to go about it though.
Your TV would report twice unless you tell Sense “what is connected to this” and said your TV, in that case Sense would know your TV is connected to the plug and only report it once and in a single bubble.
The only issue with that is if you were to move the plug or plug something else into it, you can’t un-tell Sense what is connected to the plug. Which is a whole other can of worms. Which is why some people never tell Sense what is connected and deal with double reporting.
So I currently have my deep freezer plugged into one of the plugs. My deep freezer only has an evaporator fan, a compressor, a defrost heater, a control board (with Wi-Fi) and a light bulb. It has no condenser fan and the “condenser” is just copper circled around in the drip pan (water cooled).
Sense did find the compressor and the evaporator fan. I have a “heat 5” which I think is either the defrost heater for it or my fridge.
Right now it shows the fan running (78w) and the plug is showing 82w… which I assume is the control board and Wi-Fi. But your saying … if I tell the plug “what its connected to this” … can I select the compressor, fan and heat 5 ? But then after that… I cant reset / delete the switch and re-install it. And do this again for another device?
Also is there a way I can make it to where I can’t turn the switch off in sense?
Telling Sense what’s connected to this is the same as merging a device. They become one and are inseparable.
The best option to achieve what I believe you are trying to do is to integrate the plug but do not tell Sense what is plugged into it. Simply plug the freezer into the plug and let it have it’s own bubble.
Compare heat 5’s usage to (whatever you name) smart plug’s usage. You can do this by looking at the device specific power meter using the mobile app. If your plug usage spikes every time heat 5 turns on know for certain heat 5 is part of your freezer and you can rename heat 5 accordingly. This method allows you to remove the plug and use it elsewhere as it’s not married to your freezer.
If Heat 5 is part of your freezer and you choose to merge it with the compressor and fan, they will all become one single device, one bubble, just like the smart plug there is no option for divorce. So you really want to be absolutely certain they are part of the same device before and if you decide to merge anything.
Yes, this is another thing that can only be done using the mobile app. Go to Devices - whatever you named the plug, tap the cog (upper right) to open device settings, then switch from details to manage and there is an option for “Control” which you can disable that prevents on/off control of the smart plug from within Sense.
I bought a KP125 from best buy yesterday and added on my deep freezer.
This morning, I got an alert from sense that my “Always on wattage” was found in my TP-Link switch “network switches”
With the assistance of the deep freezer plug, I realized that whatever compressor that sense found that I thought was my deep freezer compressor… Is defiantly not. Again by deep freezer’s “condenser” has no condenser fan and is water cooled. When I pulled it out of its hole, I noticed the wiring diagram which shows the the defrost heater as 125w element. So “heat 5” is showing up as 215w, thats got to be my fridge. Here is my meter graph from the plug. Since the 2nd hump has no surge at the beginning… Would you all agree this would have to be the defrost heater?
@kevin1 When I goto add items into the always on bubble. There is a searchable field that has some model specific items. Are those generated from other sense users with smart plugs?
@obscuredtrip I have the one on my deep freezer and plan to leave it there. I clicked on the “what’s this connected to” and checkmated my circulation fan for the deep freezer. That bubble now looks like yours where it has the “always on bubble” and wattage. I thought you meant by you can’t un-tell sense what it’s connected to which I was ok with since I plan on leaving the plug there. However… it seems that it will allow me to uncheck the box, click save and I’ve “un-told” sense. I am in the 1.35v of the firmware. Did they fix this or am I misunderstanding?
@ccook, info on where those precharacterized Always On values come from.
As we promised in the Always On Estimates release announcement , we’ll be routinely issuing updates to the database. We’re happy to announce our first round of updates, including about 100 new devices and generic types, such as:
This is a Sense-owned database of common items as part of the Always On Estimates feature. The information there is from technical specifications for specific electronics by make and model. Thanks @kevin1 - I was looking for that post!
When you are “telling Sense” what’s connected via a smart plug, you’re really just associating the native detection with the wattage from the smart plug to prevent double-counting. Sense is just accepting the input of the wattage into the Sense UI (don’t let our engineers see this, I’m probably oversimplifying)
That means that yes, you can un-check the box of the circulation fan for your deep freezer if you decide to move the plug elsewhere and change the name of the plugin the KASA app. The result will be you will have the same level of visibility into your freezer that you had pre-smart plug and you can move that plug around to bigger energy hogs. As Kevin mentioned, keeping a “traveler” plug specifically for understanding electronics energy usage and moving it is a good idea because historical data will be inaccurate if you move a single smart plug from device to device.
Thank you @JustinAtSense JustinAtSense for clearing that up. As far as I knew you couldn’t unmerge anything, but I guess now you can unmerge integrated devices, which is a really good thing, as I’ve been hesitant reading all the older posts about having to disable the entire integration and reenable it.
I’m experiencing a an odd Merge issue myself, a device that was discovered just today called AC 3 and is not on part of an integration (that I’m aware of) has the option to merge and unmerge, but none of my other devices do. When I tap on merge is shows “other merged devices” it lists another device called “AC4” which I’ve never had, and is not listed anywhere on my main device screen, as well as “Always on” neither are selectable. Any idea what happened here?
No, but after the most recent firmware device I’d recommend contacting support so they can track any merge issues based on what they’ve seen in the back end.
Not sure if this may be related but I integrated a third HS300 yesterday. Notification Sense noticed it shows on Web app now timeline but not Mobile app. Individual named plugs show as they should. When clicking on notification, screen pops up, "It looks like this device no longer exists. it was most likely deleted (or became obsolete).
AC3 shows usage in June, July and today. Usage doesn’t appear to match up to anything @ 500 some w.
I’ll wait to see what support has to say before I attempt to “unmerge” AC3 from whatever it thinks it merged with.
So I have moved added the plug and detected device of “deep freezer fan” this morning but I’ve had the plug on it for 2 days now. It’s still 0 degree inside the freezer. And I don’t see anything going thru the plug that looks like a compressor.
I’m confused by this as well. I have a server for my home theater and other self-hosted applications. It is in the “always on” category, and I don’t think it will ever be detected. (Besides being always on, it’s also separated from Sense by a UPS.)
The current draw from it isn’t flat: it goes up and down depending on activity, etc. I was hoping that if I plugged it into a KP115, I could move it out of the “Always On” category into a measured category, but that doesn’t seem to have worked. While I have a new bubble for “Server”, the “Always On” unknown wattage didn’t change. Is Sense counting the current from the Server twice, once from the KP115 that it is plugged into and again in the always on category?
I’m confused how Sense is able to distinguish between current from the KP115 and other loads…
@kevin1 has posted some great explanations of how Always On is calculated:
If you can wrap your head around that you will see that just because a Kasa is monitoring a device and giving you the ground truth usage for whatever is plugged into it, it won’t change the Always On calculation.
@jeff8,
It’s a little more complicated than that. There are two different measurement from the KP115 that should help improve your power usage accounting.
Overall Power Usage - Once you add the KP115, the KP115 will be measured/treated as a device. That means the live power usage from the KP115 will show up as its own bubble and will be subtracted off of Total Usage for purposes of determining the remaining Other. One note - you will need to tell that KP115 device if it is measuring any of the natively detected devices to avoid double counting. There’s a special control for that under Settings for the KP115 device (whatever you named it).
Always On - Just like the Sense overall total, Sense will compute an Always On total for each device on a compatible smart plug. Knowing the total Always On for your house and the measured Always On for your KP115 should allow you to reduce the unknown Always On component for your house. Sense makes it easy to sort this out in the Always On “device”. You’ll see a list of the measured Always On values from smartplug device subtracted off of the total Always On.
The bubble still appears if my plug is only using 25w.
