I have tried to reboot the system repeatedly. I have power cycled the breaker a half dozen times. Heck, we had a 4-hour power outage last Sunday, so all the caches should be clear!
I contacted Sense support on May 7, and we are over a dozen emails back and forth. I have heard from Tejaswi, Muzammil, Justine Igl, Umme, and Anthony. I have talked to Sigora and rebooted the entire solar panel system.
I am not a technically inclined person, so I don’t know what else to do.
Specifically, I do not understand this question that Anthony asked: Are you able to connect to the monitor via a mobile hotspot while within distance?
Is my phone a mobile hotspot? I don’t know. I have one way to connect to the internet.
Since we are emailing each other, I believe my internet connection is working.
Yesterday he sent me seven more questions:
Router/Access Point make & model?
The Distance from router/access point to where Sense is installed?
Wireless Encryption Type (WEP, WPA, WPA2)?
Is your router broadcasting a 2.4 GHz network?
Are there multiple access points or routers in the home? (This includes mesh networks.)
Do any access points share the same SSID or network name?
Is the antenna installed externally to the panel?
My answers will be ummm, CenturyLink, about 30 feet, IDK, IDK, no, but there is a signal booster in the utility closet, IDK, and no.
Can anyone help me?
Terri in Virginia
@mead.terri , assume that you had a working setup because your last post was 2 years ago ? Maybe you can share a little more context about what happened when your monitor went off line - was there any power outage, new hardware, etc ?
What does the app say when you go to Settings > My Home > Monitor and run Network test in the Network Connection section ?
Is so… while at home, on the iPhone - settings / WiFi… beside your WiFi name (ssid) should be a (i) … click on it. The see / note what the router IP is. Most common will be
192.168.0.1
Or
192.168.1.1
If not let us know what you are using for internet
This is the latest response from Anthony: The antenna not being visible is my hunch. The outage kicked the monitor offline and then when attempting to reboot it’s not making that connection required between the router and antenna. If we could get that on the outside of the panel that would be great. Nothing is sticking out to me that would label the monitor defective.
The problem with that is that there was no outage on May 3, and also the antenna has been in the same place for years now. So, he has a “hunch” and “we” should “get” the antenna on the outside of the panel???
I do not find that a helpful response.
Thank you for replying. As far as I can tell, nothing happened to cause the monitor to go offline.
The first time I try to connect, it says the monitor is not associated with a WiFi network. After I flip the breaker and try again, it says Sense did not receive a network IP config from my local network.
ccook, I don’t have an iPhone, but a basic samsung galaxy. But I poked around on my computer, and the Security shows as WPA/WPA2 and the IP address is 192.168.0.10
Again, I’m not good at this stuff, but if my computer is online and my Netflix is working, than I believe my internet connection is working.
@mead.terri, even if your internet connection is good, your WiFi connection from your modem/router/base station (the device from Centurylink that connects you to internet) to the Sense monitor could be too weak. And it could have been OK around May 2, until some new source of interference overwhelmed the connection. Sense guys seem to be asking reasonable questions if your Sense monitor antenna is not visible outside your breaker box.
I’ll ask again - What does the app say when you go to Settings > My Home > Monitor and run Network test in the Network Connection section ?
Yes, your Netflix’s use confirms your home network has Internet access. It does not confirm that the sense is properly connected to your home network.
Git within a few feet from the sense device, and within your sense application on your Samsung phone, go to Settings > My Home > Monitor and report what you see there (it may not be able to connect). If it does connect, please report what it says in the “Network Connection” section.
I agree with @kevin1 that while things may have worked until now, your configuration may have been what we call “sub-critical” and some factor may have changed causing it to not work right now.
Generally a panel cabinet is a metal box and, as such, acts as a Faraday cage, making it very hard for radio signals (WiFi) to get into or out of the box. This is why the antenna is supplied with a cable and mechanism to mount it outside the box. Regardless of anything else I would encourage you to make that change to your installation. A typical panel cabinet has circular “knockouts” that can provide the hole you need.
You can also help out by specifying what “it” is in your remarks “it says”. Is that the mobile app, or the web site, or what?
Good news, I got the monitor working! Apparently I’d been using the wrong password (although I never saw that response until today). So using the password from the router, after 2 attempts, I heard a little electronic noise from the breaker box and it connected!
I did get a notice that my upload speed was slower than it should be. I assume that’s a CenturyLink problem.
I will go away quietly, embarrassed to have bothered all of you, but before I do, I wanted to say that I did not see any knockouts on my panel, which is old and undoubtedly the cheapest model.
“It” is the app, on the phone, in my hand. I have only ever used the mobile app to play with Sense, and this site when I need help. What is the website and does it do different things?
FYI - You can log into home@sense.com (the web app) and get a web-based view of Sense usage that is similar, though not identical to the app. The one place the web app has added functionality is that it lets you export Excel .csv files of hourly or daily usage for every detected device, as well as Total Usage and Solar Production (if applicable) for whatever period of time you are viewing in the Trends section.
Great. You might still want to consider moving the antenna, but since you have no knockouts, you would have to get an appropriate drill bit to make the necessary hole.
Your box should still have knock-outs. Some of the older boxes just require a lot more force (hammer/ punch) to get them out. 2.4ghz WiFi is actually penetrates thru about anything and doesn’t need line of site. Of course getting the monitor’s antenna outside of the panel will strengthen your connection.
Within the sense app… settings / my home/ monitor…. Then in the network connection section
“Network Test……>” when you click on it you can preform a short test which will test the connection between your router and the sense meter. You should be able to see the IP address of your meter in the app too.
Your 192.168.0.10 should have been your IP of the laptop since your meter wasn’t connected to your WiFi / network. I was going to have you log into your router and find the connected devices @192.168.0.1. Your router will have a list in… some will have signal strengths within it as well, however if was showing an IP in the router , it’s connected to your WiFi (wlan).