My Review of my Sense Energy Monitor on my Smart Home blog

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Please check out the post and let me know what you think.

Here’s the link to the Facebook page for my blog, from which you can get to the blog itself.

Feel free to like the Facebook page and let me know if you have any questions or comments.

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The review was good and honest. Random question though, how did you get a sense for only $249?

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I didn’t. It’s a typo :slight_smile: Fixed

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Nice. Minor quibble. Hooking the power leads to a 240v breaker in your panel powers the Sense unit. More significant, it allows the monitor to detect the electrical signals that characterize individual devices throughout your home. The current clamps alone do not have enough sensitivity to do this well. It may seem strange to hook tiny Sense up to 240v, but doing so enables Sense to monitor both phases of your incoming electrical power. Some 120v devices will be on one phase, some on the other.

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Thanks. I’ll update the article with that.

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Excellent article - btw you’re going to love solar and the Sense solar kit!

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Really excited to read this, Frankwin!

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Thanks :slight_smile:

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I just wanted to say that this is a great piece…and not just because it’s mostly flattering! We definitely appreciate the critical and evidence-based nature of it. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more out of that blog. Always feel free to share links from it in the General Tech section.

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Thank you. I try to just use my own experiences in all the blog entries as that’s what the blog is mostly about. I really like Sense and yes there are some things that can be improved with the product, but you’re working on that and it’s still a relatively new product so. Also some of the things, such as device detection are hard, so it’s understandable that it takes time.

I did post a couple of other articles on the blog after that one. Check them out at https://homeautomationstuff.blogspot.com :slight_smile:

Soon to come, Hubitat Review :stuck_out_tongue:

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I got mine new in the box, never used for $200.
eBay!

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Well written, informative and an enjoyable read, thank you and especially putting it out there where the public can read it.
I have question if you don’t mind that is off topic about the Sense but mentioned in your review.
What brand or type of refrigerator do you ha e that has a cooling element for the ice maker.
I have a Frigidaire Gallery side by side and the ice maker only has the defrost heating element to allow the cubes to loosen before dumping.
I’m just curious.
Also I noticed some or your devices being detected by their individual motors or elements. Like a compressor and a fan separately for the same appliance. This is something I haven’t seen or just not yet. Take my heat pump. If the outside unit come on or the air handler and even the heat strips it just shows “heat pump” I wonder if it will later separate them as the heat pump actually has 2 fan motors, a compressor and heat strips that look like come on in 3 stages of 5kw, 10kw and 15kw. So did yours getting detected as the major appliance first and then broken down into each component or vice versus?

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I have a Frigidaire fridge as well. I’m not sure if it’s a cooling element exactly tbh. All I know is that whenever that “heat” device was on, it corresponded with my refrigerator being on (used a Kill-a-Watt meter to see that it was actually using more than “idle”)

It found the individual components and I combined them all into 1 device myself.

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The individual components of a modern fridge usually look like this; compressor motor underneath with a fan motor next to it to cool the compressor.
On the inside there is a circulating fan motor, antiny motor to move a flap door for balancing air between freezer and fridge. A small ice maker motor that turns the ice out and a defrost element. Then there usually two lights, one for the freezer and the other for the fridge. There is the control board which draw a small amount and some in door water dispensers have a pump.
Forgot one thing. A very small motor that raises the wire bar up and out of the way to dump ice then moves it back down again.
That’s 11 different electrical devices and what mine has. I would guess there are others with mich more like tv screens, WiFi and who knows what else.

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