My 1 month review

Share your Sense stories
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Installed Sense about a month ago on Oct 19th. Been reading the forums for about half a year prior.
Having a good idea what to expect, honestly I’m quite surprised at how well it works, with the exception of the server issues Sense had. There are a few things that could use some improvement which make it more user friendly and provide a better user experience, most of that has been covered elsewhere.

As far as my setup. House is about 1800sq ft + finished basement, split/hillside ranch (1 story front, 2 back) built in the 1950’s by a rather odd electrician. Most of the lighting was controlled by old Remcon low voltage switching with extra switches in strange locations. About 6 years ago I completely gutted the lower level and remodeled including a new subpanel, wiring and everything down the line. 5yrs ago the service mains needed to be replaced so we switched from above to below ground with new meter and main panel. Had planed on remodeling upper level but that’s on an indefinite hold as my mother who lives with us has Alzheimer’s disease and any change at this point would be too confusing. Which brings me to one of the reasons for installing Sense. Notifications when something has been turned on, or on too long like the stove or microwave, as an additional layer of safety.

So far in the month since installing Sense it has detected 16 devices. A bunch a were not detected completely accurately, but 16 devices is more then I had expected. For the most part I have been able to figure them out.

1st device detected was 3 days in labeled coffee maker, turns out it was an aquarium heater. Quite a few devices followed with the most recent motor device detected yesterday which is my dryer motor.

The devices detected, I have labeled as:
Aquarium heater 1
Aquarium heater 2
Coffee Maker (kitchen)
Dehumidifier 1
Dryer
Electric Blanket
Furnace (induction motor)
Kitchen Fridge (compressor)
Laser Printer and Keurig (Sense can’t tell them apart)
Living Room recessed lights
Microwave
Motor 1 (unknown)
Oven (bake element)
Stove (large burner)
Stove (small burner)
Wine Fridge

My always on is around 700-750w and slowly moving into the other category.
Other is always really high, hopefully Sense can help sort that out and I can bring it down with time.
Trends Compare is a lot higher than similar homes in me area, state, and all homes so I have a lot of work to do.
I do have 4 aquariums a 220 gallon, 65 gallon with 20 gal sump, a 55gallon and a 10 gallon. Combined they use a lot of power.
The recessed lights Sense detected are currently incandescent on a dimmer. After seeing how much power they use I plan on switching them over to LED very soon.
Most other lighting is LED with the exception of my shop where I have florescent tubes as I need bright light with no shadows. I’d love to swap them out to LED too if I could find a great deal on a TON of them.
I might try moving the breaker powering my office to the other leg in the panel to even out the load a bit more which would also put the printer on a different leg than the Keurig.
The most interesting thing I’ve seen in the meter is my MIG welder.
Power quality has had a few dips, mostly during a decent windstorm we had.

Overall I’d say this relationship off to a good start and I’m looking forward to see what the future holds.

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Very curious about the aquariums (I know, wrong forum). Are those salt water / reef, many corals? I was into that few years back, but not anymore as that requires a lot of maintenance. Happy Sense-ing.

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A lot of lessons learned and still to be learned about power with those tanks.

The 220 is freshwater. I worked at a restaurant years ago and maintained the tank, it closed and no one else had room or the knowledge so to my home it went. It had some cichlids and 2 blood red parrot fish. Then in 2006 the October storm hit Western New York, we lost power for 3 days, some lost power for over a week. The sole UPS and fireplace wasn’t enough and only the one Parrot and a Pleco survived. Some time later the power briefly went out one night, the next morning I checked the tank and everything was gone. The GFCI had tripped and the UPS wasn’t working.
My other half went out and got a couple fish for the tank. One of them was a 2" baby Pacu. She had no idea how big they got. Now the only thing in the 220 gallon tank is that 24" red bellied Pacu. We’ve gone through numerus heaters over the years as it kept chewing through the heater cords and airline tubing. I’ve since ran everything down inside the tank through florescent light safety covers (clear tube) and haven’t had any problems. 2 500w heaters one set slightly lower then the other as a backup. After installing Sense I realize it turns one and off constantly running for a little over a minute each time and consumes about 6% of my monthly electric use. Sense might also be including the 55 gallon heater into that. The canister filter and air pump use about 40w unsure of the LED lights.

The 55gallon was primarily a fresh water Guppy tank, not many of the guppies left, I think they became a little to inbred over time. The filter and air pump in that tank use about 15w.

The 65 gallon is an in wall salt tank we acquired from someone a couple years ago who had a power issue and lost everything before a planned move and they couldn’t take t with them so they gave it to use for free. Can’t beat free as live rock isn’t cheap. We had to replace most of the equipment as it was older. It adds up real quick with the less expensive options. I’d be bankrupt had we gone with the top of the line equipment. I have one 300w heater in the sump and another set slightly higher in the tank itself, both on a temperature controller as an additional failsafe. Sense tells me it consumes about 3% of my monthly use. I have 2 UPS’s on that tank one backup for the return pump, lights, and powerhead. Mainly to keep the time and prevent wear on the pumps when the power flickers. The other UPS powering the wavemaker, ATO, and filter for 10 gallon tank.
I have a pair of mated clowns, no success with any fry, purple firefish, had a 2nd but it got crushed when it’s cave collapsed. Starry Blenny died of old age and a Mandarin who survived 3 years. A cleaner shrimp and various snails.
Started with one BTA which has split into 4. have a couple rock anemones, gorgonians, a nice leather and some various other frags. Most everything came from local frag swaps.
I’ve been dealing with a bad outbreak of GHA for a little over a year which I think I’ve finally gotten under control. Such a PITA as nothing has seemed to work all that well.
The 10 gallon is somewhat a quarantine tank, but had seemingly morphed into a small office tank, no fish now, just a couple frags and a ton of GSP.
Maintenance is defiantly key with any salt water setup, constant testing, adjusting parameters, etc… Defiantly not a hobby for someone with little time, dedication or patience. The slightest changes to anything has huge effects. It makes you feel like some sort of mad scientist.

The power here is pretty good, we don’t often loose it for any extended periods of time, but we are known for getting once in a lifetime storms. By lifetime I think they go by all 9 lives of a cat’s life. I now check, test and replace my UPS batteries regularly and have a portable generator for longer outages. When the power goes out the UPS alarms go off, multiple smart outlets alert me and now Sense.

I’d love to figure out a way to heat the tanks more efficiently, but I’m not really sure there is. Once I’m a bit further into Sense, I plan on figuring out a way to better analyze the data and possibly finding and implementing other tools and sensors to look for a correlation between temperature of the house and temperature of the tanks to determine if keeping the house slightly warmer in winter either with the furnace or by using the wood burning insert more often would help cut back on the energy required to heat the tanks. We don’t have AC, in the summer I have had to put fans near the tanks to keep the temp down, so I know there will be a direct effect.
How to maximize over efficiency is certainly going to be a task I know very little about but I’m willing to learn. Just wish there was some existing tools I could use as neither math nor date manipulation are my strong suits. More of a jack of all trades master of none.

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Thank you for the very detailed answer, and for the wonderful memories. I tried multiple tanks but ultimately the one I kept the longest was a 72G Bowfront. Was full of fish, LPS, and soft corals. Maintenance was really ‘painful’, between mixing fresh water, water changes, vacuuming the sand etc … still by the end of the day, when the tank and everything was clean, it was very rewarding to sit and watch. Like many, I got into the hobby when the movie ‘finding Nemo’ came out (~2004). Everyone back then wanted their own Ocellaris pair. Then, there was all the craze with Australian ACANs and SPS with mesmerizing colors. Too bad the hobby has dwindled quite a bit since its peak, in ~2007/8. Enjoy, it’s a very ‘relaxing/rewarding’ hobby.

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Wow @obscuredtrip, 16 devices in a month is pretty darn impressive… I have also had mine connected for a month (installed on the evening of 10/17/2020) and I have had only 7 devices detected and just under half of those are components of my refrigerator!!!

Here are the 7 devices that have been detected:

  • Refrigerator Compressor
  • Refrigerator Defroster
  • Refrigerator Door Light
  • Coffee Maker - The real one that I actually use and have confirmed
  • Coffee Maker - A phantom device that has not turned on since around the time it was discovered. I leave it on my account in case it ever turns on again, but I am thinking about deleting this one and “throwing it back in the ocean” for either permanent deletion or re-discovery
  • Paper Shredder
  • Garage Door Opener
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Yeah, Zoa’s were the big thing a couple years ago, now it’s Euphyllia. The prices for many coral is ridiculous. What was once a $10 frag is now hundreds because someone stuck a fancy name on it. I could care less about the latest fad, I just want something I can keep alive. The hobby is pretty big in this area with a handful of decent local shops.
Rewarding indeed when things go right.

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It’s interesting how device detection varies so much from person to person. Heat and Motors seems to be the quickest to detect.
I’m surprised Sense detected my furnace induction motor but not my blower motor. I’ve used the blower fan setting much more often. Still hasn’t detected my mini bar fridge, shredder, garage door opener and a few other devices. Hopefully it’s just a matter of time.
I think what may have helped is I went around one day and turned breakers off then back on one by one. Then turned them all off (with the exception of Sense and my router) and turned them back on one by one. After that my “always on” went way down and “other” went up. Possibly hinting to the AI, hey look at this.

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Not all motors are the same when it comes to Sense detection. Variable speed AC motors and DC motors are far more difficult to detect. Variable speed AC motors typically use electronics to modulate the speed (i.e. variable speed furnace blower motors). Electronics and possibly a battery buffer DC motors (i.e. garage door openers with battery backup). The electronics hide the actual motor on and off as well as motor-like characteristics.

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We have many aquariums as well . I bought sense to try an separate my home electric usage from the tanks electric usage. I’m very disappointed and frustrated device detection and found items disappearing( not showing up as using power) .
I really want to use sense to save money but don’t open the app much anymore because my other and always on bubbles are the majority of my usage. I just replaced a 15yo heat pump and air handler. However because my old system hasn’t been tracking it’s going to be hard to see if and how much power I’m saving with the new unit, other that a drop in my electric bill.
The other thing that is frustrating is there is no inline device that you can plug a hard to detect device into so that sense can isolate and learn the waveform. This plug could communicate thru wifi or Bluetooth with the sense unit. You enter the Device Make and Model# could be easily added so that once learned other users who input that device in their my home device list could Benefit with increased found devices on their app!

Ive tried tp link devices but they only monitor the tp link device not what’s connected to it. When the power goes out they default to off :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: so they can’t be relied on for anything involving life support for tanks. As we have a gas home backup generator now, I have a kasa device in my electronic cabinet that has a battery backup for my modem router and cable box. But because the kasa monitor defaults to not passing power thru it after a power loss it has to be manually reset to on And if I forget the only reminder I have is when the internet and cable box stops working because the battery backup died.

So yeah the always on pump motors ie return pumps, protein skimmer pumps, circ pumps, wave makers, heaters don’t get detected, it hasn’t detected our metal halide lights either.

So many items in the house haven’t been detected or I can’t figure out where or what the found device is. My stove it detected every burner as a separate device, same with my fridge, found ice machine water pump, the light. But hasn’t found pot warmer on my coffee maker?

On the comparison to other users. :rofl: Obviously we use a lot more power than others. Because of all the aquariums lights pumps ac and dedicated dehumidifier.

Many people have hobbies or devices in their homes that use extra power than the typical homeowner. Mig welders, air compressors, pools, ect …. There should be a way to select whom your power usage is being compared to or to exclude these items from the comparison if or when they are found. As the purpose of getting a sense is to identify and make changes to your power usage to save money. But when you have aquariums that have hard to identify devices and devices that are always on, that don’t get identified even after 1.5-2 years. It’s impossible to move yourself from the top of the usage compared to other users to the middle or bottom.
I’m glad you have had better results than I have. And Sorry :pray: to vent on your post, I had high hopes for my sense. The long and device detection times are frustrating and there isn’t anything you can do but wait. When it comes to tracking energy usage of people in the aquarium hobby from my experience (YMMV) is that sense does not meet expectations.

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Your experience with TP-Link Kasa smart plugs is strange. All of mine default to the last state they were in. If my HS110s, HS300s, or KP115s were set to on when the power went out, they come back on after a power failure.

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Sorry it was the Belkin WEMO Insight. I get them mixed up

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Many say the newest firmware version for the Kasa plugs revert to last state. However Kasa support told me they revert to off and most often need to be completely reconfigured after a power outage. Being told that is not too reassuring or comforting about their product to say the least.

Sense has been good about detecting aquarium heaters as they frequently turn on and off. Most everything else is constant on, DC powered or only uses a small amount of power so will likely never be detected.

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Update about 8 months in.
I ended up preforming a factory reset of my Sense this month.
I was having numerous detection issues and many months without a single detection. Support also suggested a factory reset may or may not resolve some of the other issues. Which it did not, as most of the issues are long term bugs with no resolve in sight.

Labs Power Quality only updating once or twice a week, missing data, dips not being reported, exported data is not current only only 1-2 days worth of data.

Web Power Meter does not show current usage graph when fully zoomed in the last minute or so is cuts off. Now line is not at end of graph. Now line and current usage is not the same due to that.

Have not yet rediscovered enough devices to know if the issue with Senses “offline model” missing a lot of device cycles has improved and will start coinciding accurately with the “online model”. This caused device graphs and bubbles to not match up with actual usage or timeline reporting.

Overall I still think Sense is a great product, but some serious focus needs to be put into resolving many of these long term known bugs, getting the existing platform straightened out and the web platform up to par.

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Well even an always on pump such as a return pump should be able to be taught to the system. If devices we able to be added manually with make/model followed by a way to collect the waveform by a series manual on /off cycles…
There should be a way to teach the sense.
I’d say after two years I’m tired of waiting for automatic detection.

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Your lucky we lose power here (costal SC) for no reason on a clear blue sky day. Not to mention the threats of daily summer pop up thunderstorms and hurricanes! That’s why we got the whole house back up. I was tired of pulling out the portable generator and running power cords thru the house every time the power went out! Now my longest power outage is 18 seconds! I think it’s a must for anyone who has a reef tank as most have thousands invested even before you add livestock to the tank!
Before the generator backup, we had a marine battery backup, that would provide power to a wave pump. When we were home, we briefly connected the return pump to the tank every few hrs to cycle the sump and tank water. We worried about long term Electronics damage Apex and such being on the unregulated “dirty” power of a constantly fluctuation of a portable generator.

I have family in western NY the get some crazy wind storms out there that knock out power!

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Really sorry to hear about the drop-off here, @obscuredtrip. From your response, it sounds like you have a few Support tickets open. I can take a look at what Support was able to see on our end and follow-up internally.

I’m assuming that Support had your check your in-panel configuration - with quite a few issues you’re seeing, I’m wondering if either of your CT’s are loose/partially open.

Either way, I’ll take a look at your tickets today and let you know if I find anything illuminating/have any recommendations for you.

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I was expecting a slowdown of new device detection but not a complete stall. Since the reset Sense has discovered 5 easy devices, which is about the rate originally. Still have to confirm what’s what but that the easy part.
I do have one open ticket, the rest were closed due to known bug or server issue. The couple times manual changes were made the issues stayed the same, became worse or started effecting other devices. So I kind of gave up trying to sort out detection issues and have been waiting around hoping once the known bugs effecting multiple and/or all users are finally sorted out I could start digging into things on my end a little more to get a better idea of what’s going on before submitting anything else.

As you can imagine that along with the device level timeline a few devices were reporting consecutive off or on in a row made things difficult. At the time we narrowed a lot of that down to discrepancies between the “online” and “offline” models.

My newly discovered “motor 1” believed to be a dehumidifier.
Now, News, shows “motor 1” 1:07pm on, 1:07pm off, 12:46pm off, 12:16pm on, 12:16pm off, 12:14pm off, 12:00pm on
Devices, device timeline shows 1:07pm on, 1:07pm off, 12:46pm off.
Device power meter graph only shows usage from 12:00pm -12:05pm 12:30pm-12:46pm. Absolutely nothing at 1:07pm. I could assume it was a very short cycle less than a minute.
That still doesn’t explain why both timelines report it turned off before it came on. At first before the reset I had assumed this was a bug in the system as it only and nearly always happens when a device cycles within the same displayed minute (not 60 second period, mind blank of the correct term).

Normally I would chalk this up to Sense needing time to fully learn a device, but as I said I was having the same and other issues in the past with devices that were discovered months prior.
After learning about the independent online and offline models and how one can miss a cycle causing discrepancies it still seems as if there is something else at play here.

The web version meter now and zooming/scrolling issues only made things more annoying and difficult to sort out.

One major positive I just noticed since the reset the individual device usage issues regarding times on, total time on and stats has seems to have resolved itself.

CT’s are on the main legs in a 3yr old 200a service panel before the main disconnect. Plenty of space as the panel feeds a couple breakers and 2 remote sub panels. I wasn’t asked to check the CT’s but I did and they appeared to be fully closed.
Total usage appears to be accurate so I doubt it’s that, but hard to compare to my utility (NYSEG) as the billing cycles range from 23-32 days with no consistency. NYSEG states “The billing periods will change monthly due to the meter reading dates also fluctuating in addition to various other billing steps behind the scenes”. Sense provides me a much better month over month usage comparison.

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I’m going to bring this to our team on Monday to see if I can find out a bit more about this issue and follow-up with you. Thanks for providing a few examples.

The other thing worth noting with CT’s is that in some installations, if the panel door closes against the CT’s it can sometimes open them slightly. Just a note, I know you mentioned you have plenty of space.

I appreciate the fact you acknowledged some positives (even with some of the long-standing issues you’ve had.) If you don’t have a pair of Flex Sensors for Dedicated Circuit Monitoring already (or using Sense Solar, Generators, or 400A split-service integrations), reach out to me via private message with your mailing address and I can send you a pair. You can learn more about Dedicated Circuit Monitoring here.

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“motor 1” was detected yesterday automatically renamed “AC” this evening. To give you a better idea here are a couple screen shots from the first detection yesterday. 5:06 in the 1st & 2nd capture are the same event . Same for 5:49 (just how I happened to take the captures). You can see most of the on/off cycles that occurred within the same minute are all reversed, 5:06, 5:17, 5:38, 5:59. Oddly the cycles at 4:21, 4:33, 6:20 were all in the correct order.

Screenshot_20210611-231549_Sense
Screenshot_20210611-231549_Sense1440×2960 178 KB

Screenshot_20210611-231601_Sense
Screenshot_20210611-231601_Sense1440×2960 178 KB

Screenshot_20210611-231618_Sense
Screenshot_20210611-231618_Sense1440×2960 179 KB

It’s not a huge deal itself, but when you throw a couple missed detections into the mix as what was happening before (the reset) with my oven, things get really confusing. Even more so if only one “model” misses the detection.

There are a lot of positives and they do far outweigh the negatives. The negatives being more frustrating than anything as most would be a seemingly easy fix, when compared to all the work that goes into the whole device discovery and machine learning and aspect.
I’ve learned a LOT about my energy usage since installing Sense.
Watching the meter spike when turning on our recessed incandescent lights was quite shocking. We hardly ever use them anymore.
I now double and triple check to make sure my shop lights get turned off.
After discovering how much our Keurig used in standby I immediately put it on a smart plug (non Kasa).
Seeing how frequently my aquarium heaters turn on still has me thinking for ideas. If only I used my wood burner more often.
Finally fixed my leaking air compressor fitting.
Next on the list will be replacing my halogen outdoor lighting fixtures with Led.
I’ve become much more self aware because of Sense but there is still a long long way to go, this is only just the beginning.

No solar, many large mature trees. No central AC (yet), hillside ranch lower level stays about 10 degree cooler in summer. My wife see’s a used hot tub in her near future, I think CT’s on that will be a must. In the meantime a CT on my pool pump fed from main panel would be great.