Sense had finally found our 20 year old Kenmore, which was failing and bit of a power hog. We replaced it with a new Kenmore (actually made by LG). Unlike the old refrige, which was “bang/bang” on/off for both cooing and defrosting, the new one uses a “linear compressor”, virtually silent and very low (and fairly constant…it runs slowly/proportionality as needed) power. In the months since then, Sense hasn’t detected it at all. It is a motor, sort of, and I’d think a pretty distinct one.
Anyone having any luck with Sense finding these units?
Some Samsung refriges do have the same thing, not sure which ones. They call it a “digital inverter compressor” and they say
“(a compressor that can operate at variable speeds because it is operated with a digital inverter). Unlike the standard single-speed compressor, which is either off or operating at full speed (typically about 3,600rpm), the digital inverter compressor is almost always on, but can operate at different speeds – from 1,100 to 4,300rpm.”
Pretty cool, so to speak…
Looking at your power profile, it looks quite a bit different than I’d expect, since it’s off a lot of the time…hmmm
Sense hasn’t found my refrige (or much of anything else after a full year) yet, so I have no clue what the power profile looks like. And, it’s in a cabinet and hard to move, so I can’t easily connect my kill-a-watt to watch it.
I’m no engineer, but the fridge sounds like it’s running more frequently than our previous one, and you can barely hear it. The profile also looks like there’s a stepwise decrease in consumption as it’s operating. The model # is RF23HCEDBBC/aa
Aside from the energy savings, and the quiet, we also love the precise temperature control. This one maintains within a couple of degrees, while our old one changed over more than 10…food (particularly things like milk) are lasting much better.
This new technology is something our data science team is investigating, particularly with newer Samsung models. Very helpful to know the LG model seems similar. No exact timeline on when something like this may start being recognized by Sense, but know that we’re on top of it!
I have two refrigerators in my home, an older one, and a newer one. The new one is an LG and has a linear compressor (model: LFC28768ST. After a month in, sense has NOT detected the LG, even though it is on multiple times a day.
I guess Sense doesn’t know how to detect linear compressors yet?? I’m surprised, because pretty much all new french door style refrigerators use this tech, and I bought this fridge over 3 years ago.
Anyways, you can see the difference on the graph below I was able to capture. The first pattern is my old fridge (standard compressor which sense was able to detect in a few days), and the second pattern is the LG linear compressor (sense still has not detected). As you can see, they are totally different.
You were very lucky that it found your first fridge so fast. It took 9 months to find my 20 year old one, and after 3 months still hasn’t found the new Kenmore linear model.
The Data Science teams has narrowed it down to a few different linear compressor patterns, and are starting with improvements to the most prevalent types based on what data we have. It’s a bit hard to tell if the Samsung and LG fridges mentioned in this thread will be covered in the first go round, but the work is ongoing until we’ve figured out ways to catch those other linear compressors. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!
Great news, thanks. We’ll keel watching. Since the fridge is one of the larger consumers (even with linear compressors), it would be great to see that.
Also, if Sense had been monitoring my older fridge, it probably could have saved me a HUGE (way more than the cost of Sense) loss when the defrost failed while we were away and both freezer and fridge temps soared. Now we monitor fridge and freezer temps.
I have a new LG fridge with the linear compressor and it hasn’t been found yet. Found each of my cooktops on the LG stove however. Hasn’t found the LG dishwasher yet.
I also have the LG (Kenmore label) linear compressor and after four months, nada. It did find the Door Ice unit though…apparently the cruncher is pretty distinctive.
Just bumping this thread since we took delivery of a new LG fridge today with the linear compressor. It hasn’t shut off since we got it plugged in about 6 hours ago (not surprising since it not only had to cool everything down from scratch, but also re-cool a lot of the previous fridges contents that may have warmed up during the switch) so I haven’t yet been able to see a clean startup-run-shutdown profile yet, but I’m hoping to see one tonight.
Ironically, literally 6 hours after our old 18 year old refrigerator went out the door headed to the recycling centre…I just got a notification on my iPhone 10 minutes ago that Sense had “found a new device!”. Guess what it was?
Andy… Others… Got an LG frig. Over the week-end ( I figured it out ) had a Heat 4 device pop up last week. 600 watts. Thought the neighbor was tapping in to our power…Hi hi. Had an awful time figuring it out. Finally, I looked at the UPS on the frig. ( APC)… It has several display screens to look at. With notifications on the Heat 4, I jumped to look at the ‘load’ when I got a notification. 650 watts or so. Must be the defrost mode. Our LG frig is about 3 years old and is the linear compressor model. Most of the time it only draws about 50 to 100 watts when in the cooling mode. It ramps up and down on current draw. Cut our electric bill a bunch when we put it in.
Another thought from reading on the group here… Not sure detection was taking place with the use of UPSs. Have 4-5. Frig, TV, Computer-phones and internet hub. Found the frig on high wattage but been waiting months for others to be penetrated. Gerry
So, now that the Beta is over and I can freely discuss the new smartplug integration (see the specific thread on the topic) I will mention here that I have had our LG linear refrigerator logging via a TP-Link HS110 for about a week or so now.
Although the resulting data does look (at a more zoomed out scale) somewhat like a traditional refrigerator compressor, when you zoom in more the somewhat variable nature of the compressor does start to show, which is without doubt what can lead to detection issues directly with Sense itself.
However, the ground truth data I am now feeding back to Sense will hopefully aid in native detection for others in the future!
Any concerns with placing the fridge on one of these TP-Link energy smart plugs? We have a new Samsung unit coming Monday and I am thinking about using one on it, but my concern is could it somehow get switched to the off position without my wanting that. Don’t care if a light gets shut off by accident but certainly don’t want to risk that with the fridge.
