‘ The Sense app cannot currently aggregate data from two Sense monitors at once and so, in order to handle a multi-monitor configuration, you will need to create two separate accounts and track one monitor from each account. In the future, we are planning to add multi-monitor compatibility to the app, so stay tuned.’
This is from a 2018 post. Has there been any update to having two installed. Also have solar so middle port is used.
Which use case are you looking at ?
Except for the split 400A enhancement that won’t work for you with solar, there haven’t been any additional improvements. Wishlist items for different use models here:
Users have have shares a few possible work
Thanks for the reply.
Multiple monitors for 400A.
There was a reason why the electrician could not install before the split.
It has been a few years since it was all installed. Looking for the app to support more than one sense unit. At least allow to switch without logging out and back in again.
Or a sense unit that you can plug two things into.
My suspicion is that all real-time calculations for the Power Meter and transition detection (the precursor to most device detection) have to be done within a single monitor. So no combined real-time UI unless Sense rolls out a monitor with more CT ports. But Home Assistant can work in your case, since accesses hourly energy information for all the CTs.
As a practical matter (long time developer speaking), this doesn’t have to be true. It certainly makes sense that transition detection, assuming it happens in the device firmware, can only detect transitions related to CT’s hooked up to that device. As long as a multi-sense installation does not have CT legs across “boundaries” so that detection would require combining data from two sense-units, this should be possible to (make it) work. Even if detection happens on the mothership.
It seems the basic requirement is the notion of tagging all data with a sense unit id (which I am sure already happens in some form). As long as multiple units are registered to a single “owner” it should also be possible to mmodify all data queries currently used to not select based on a single device id, but on the union of all “owned” device ids. That, then would allow a unified look at most of the data.
The issue is slightly different for scenarios where multiple sense units are in use, but on different properties, because in that scenario, you would want an easy way to select which property one is looking at, but once that is done, you would not want data merged.
A final hurdle could be for what is called aggregate data, such as total consumption, because those could be looked at on a per sense-unit basis (assumign it is even configured to measure any kind of consumption), or across all units on a single property. That would definitely require some additional work. I bet, though that most users that have asked about multi-units would be happy even if the aggregate totals where not there yet.
Homeassistant (I am a user) would seem a way around some of these issues, but in practice it will not be so easy. This is due to the fact that all current “integrations”, the means by which one access data from sense for example, only allow configuration for a single user/account at any one time. Since sense has a one-device, one-user, policy, this effectively makes unified management, data combination/aggregation/presentation, quite hard unless one goes to greatly expand functionality of existing integrations. Additionaly, I am sure there are many users with multi-sense desires that are not capable, or willing, or have the time, to go program homeassistant.
So while I do not accept the premise that these things are not possible, or even technically difficult (with a few exceptions), I do also not expect any of this to be done. The reason should be clear to most by now. Sense is entirely NOT focused on serving the customer base of the sense unit. Its energy seems to go into other business, probably bigger business with utilities. The current product has not really received any substantial functionality enhancements in a couple of years now, and even responses to alledged bugs are slow, and sometimes, non existant. James is doing his best, but he is only the communicator and does not determine company policy.
A starting point is not combining and just allow switching between the two sense units, without having to have two accounts.
Next is to combine totals.
Fully combining would be nice but not that much more useful.
With my setup. I would get complete combining. By only using the solar data from one sense and all the data from the other.
@dolfs , not sure what you are doing or not doing but my Home Assistant hub pulls data from two different Sense accounts concurrently. That’s not a limitation of the integration, as you suggest.
The other piece of complexity that many Sense users don’t understand is Kirchhoff’s current law. All the currents flowing into/out of a “node” add up to zero and are therefore all interconnected and continuously change in relation to one another. The post meter busbar in house is a single node and the grid (through the meter), the solar backfeed or feed-ins, and every downstream breaker panel are all current sources/sinks connected to that single node so they all affect each other, both in terms of magnitude and phase (since this is AC) - there is no boundary or isolation between each where current, and therefore power, is concerned. That’s why I don’t think Sense detection can cross monitors - it would require too much cross monitor data transfer to sort out what happens in realtime.
Just to make it more concrete, here’s a simple diagram. Let’s just consider the black leg. The Panel2 CTs are set up to measure the Panel2 Total Usage quite nicely. But there’s no way for the Sense monitor in Panel1 to figure out whether solar production is flowing to Panel1 load, Panel2 load or to Grid (and how much to each) without getting the readings from Panel2 Sense in realtime.
Sadly, Sense has the rudiments to watch multiple Sense units in their Sense Pro targeted at solar installers - they have the ability to do “fleet management” plus some extra debug tools. But not end-users right now, and not visibility.
You are right about multiple account support in HA, my bad. For the rest, I was making a case that, except for transition detection, there is very little (technical) impediment to allow multi-sense accounts, which you kind of confirm with the observation about the pro capabilities.
I like the picture that goes with your explanation, Kevin. I also understand the technical merit of your conclusion quoted here. In practical terms, however, I don’t see that it makes much difference.
It seems to me that panel 1 should report To Grid as Solar Production minus Panel 1 Usage. Panel 2 would then report all usage as From Grid. When combined for a given installation, the totals would be correct even if the individual Sense boxes report incorrect values for To Grid and From Grid. If the app were able to combine multiple Sense units, then the user would see correct installation totals and would probably never notice the incorrect values from individual monitors.
Your’re right - Panel2 has no way of knowing whether power is coming from grid or solar and the mix between them, So Panel2 stuff should be correct. The problem is that Panel1’s monitor has a fixed calculation to treat IPanel1 + Isolar as Itot1 (correct), and IPanel1 when negative as To Grid, and when Positive as From Grid (wrong). The real from and to grid needs to be done by combining Ipanel1 and Ipanel2.
ps: I finally drew out the setup and there are really two nodes because there is a measurement between Isolar and Itot1. The orange rectangles are the CTs and the values in red are the ones that are calculated in relative by Sense.
