Thanks @ron111157,
I’m a former electrical engineer, who eventually ended up in software, so I really love this gadget, because it brings back memories of my junior year labs on power engineering (dubbed SuperLab, the power lab sessions took place in a room that looked a bit like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, with huge exposed copper power busses everywhere, carrying 3-phase and split phase electricity to motors and transformers).
After poking a little more into how Sense does its current identification, a couple of the things you are seeing aren’t quite so counterintuitive.
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Each component of complex devices has it own On and Of transition which each have their own physics characteristics, hence discovery of the fridge water dispenser separate from the compressor, separate from the defroster. And the clues that Sense currently uses to differentiate can’t completely discern. As you have seen, resistive (heating) devices don’t give much to go on except the house phase they are connected to, plus their resistance value. Motors (essentially coils of wire) can look similar to transformers, and older microwaves use big transformers, so they can sometimes get mixed up.
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Your Philips bulbs are probably being detected via the Hue Integration, which uses a different mechanism for detection, than Sense “native detection”. With Hue bulbs, Sense gets the on/of and power information from the Hue Hub, not by looking for the 5W transitions on your house mains.