Hi! Growing up, I built my dad a monitoring system for his home-grown solar-thermal hot water system, and I wired up LEDs as nightlights in our low-energy home back when super-brights were a few bucks a pop. When we recently bought a townhouse outside of Seattle, WA, I was thrilled to finally play around with Sense! It’s been a lot of fun understanding our home’s energy consumption, especially with 100% electric heat, a mini-split air conditioning (and heating) system, and a Chevy Bolt.
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Hello, new here, new user, just installed a few minutes ago. Should be interesting to learn more about our usage, instead of being baffled by our electric bills. I purchased the wiser with the extra clamps, but not sure what to use them on. I have a 240v panel, also with a off peak panel, ac, water heater, not sure what else. my bills are always about $200, sometimes closer to $300. I have 2 saltwater aquariums, so that definitely wont help with rock bottom electric bills.
Well, if I can figure out the extra 2 clamps, and where to put them, that would be great. looks like I have some reading and learning to do.
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Hey there Joel! Welcome to the community.
Feel free to reach out to me directly once you get a list of some of the electric appliances in your home - I’d focus on some of the things you use most frequently. It helps to also know what appliances in your home are gas and which are electric - for instance, in Cambridge, Massachusetts I have a gas range, oven, and furnace. I’m using the flex sensors to monitor my washer, which Sense had some trouble detecting initially. It’s great not having to check when a load of laundry is done, I just get a notification sent to my phone when the washer turns off!
I am here because I am a nerd for this kind of stuff (and an EE), so I installed Sense in November and integrated it into 9.57kW DC in rooftop PV last week. I am interested in furthering the community once I have more data to do so (and the time - I work in cyber security and the job can be demanding).
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Hello All. I came here because I got a Sense device for Christmas. I am self-employed as a distributor and dealer of connectivity products such as cables and electronics. My company is Cable Solutions and I built the website at https://www.cs1.net
The products I sell are related to stereo, home theater, school and house of worship applications, so I spend a fair amount of time working with that technology. I’m also the I.T. guy here, so I’m responsible for the network infrastructure and all the connected computers and mobile devices. Recently became a dealer for security products, so I’ve been having some fun installing and learning about IP cameras.
I have YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts, but don’t post much…you’d be more likely to find me in some tech forum. For example, I first saw the Discourse forum software used in the Tablo Community forum.
I’m a web developer, network administrator, audiophile, videophile, technology buff, electrician, carpenter, woodworker, plumber, painter, mechanic, cyclist and aspiring pianist…all of which might give the impression that I know everything, but in reality, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.
-Mark
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Hi Mark! Welcome.
I think you’re going to fit in just fine here 
Ha! Thanks.
@joel.s.c14. Curious about the water tanks. It’s an old hobby of mine … that I abandoned few years back as it required more time than I had. My best was a 72G bowfront with various Soft and LPS corals, and a mix of fish. My favorite inhabitants were a Maculosis, a Red Coris, and a Chateodon Collare. Those were gorgeous fish and provided hours of enjoyment.
What size tanks you have, and what’s their population?
Oh, and about those 2 CT clamps, you can use them to monitor the aquariums consumption … but I would not share that with your significant other … as that’s something typically not well ‘accepted’ 
I have a 4ft 120, and a 3 ft 58. both reef tanks. there are a few Rose Bubble Tip Anemone in there, lol probably 15 or more. thats the 120.
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Gorgeous, and thank you for sharing. I tried one RBTA once, and it kept on moving and stunned/killed many of my corals. What I did not know back then is that the RBTA needs to go in first, and only once it’s settled, one can add corals. I have an old pic of my tank … will post once I find it … assuming the mods here won’t send us to reefcentral
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What brought you here?
I’ve been looking into Sense for quite a while and just purchased it this month. It is still #earlydays and more and more devices are being recognized. I have a 100% electrically-powered single family home and want to rein-in energy costs. Secondly, I’ll be using Sense to ascertain appliance end of life too.
How long have you been using Sense?
17 days!
What do you do for work?
Digital Performance Marketing
What other smart home tech do you have?
Sense and I just purchased a Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip, HS300.
– Michael
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Hi everyone! Just joined the sense family trying to get a better sense of where all this energy is going in my new home in LA. Cheers
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Hi. My name is Courtney. I installed the Sense monitor a couple of weeks ago to try to understand my home power usage better. I recently moved to CT for work and the energy cost is higher than I am used to and I have an old house. I’m hoping to streamline my energy usage. I am a theatrical lighting designer and electrician, so I spend a lot of my time working with electricity in that setting. I have basic home electrical skills, but I’m used to working with higher capacities in the theatre.
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My name is Charles. I just bought my own place and since it came with solar I wanted to understand how much energy I was using vs what i was generating on a more granular rate than monthly. I am hoping that this will enable me to save some money as my only source of energy is electricity.
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Hey folks!
My name is Harry and I’m a solutions engineer for a large tech company. I came here to look for some information on calculating production and any other tips or tricks for using the system.
I bought my Sense about a week ago and I love it so far. I have newly installed solar and am monitoring the production via the Enphase app. I’m going to be installing the solar connection to my Sense for a one app view.
My other smart home tech: door lock, doorbell camera, smart hub.
Thanks,
-Harry
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Hey there!!
My name is Jimmy, and I thought I would introduce myself. How do they say it? Long time lurker, first time poster. I am 37 years old and currently living in a house built in 2005. I am a Paramedic and currently working for Amazon as an Onsite Medical Representative in Fort Worth, TX. I haven’t always been energy conscious. I would say that a majority of the time I have spent responsible for my own bills, I haven’t always been a spend thrift either. All of my adult life since I moved out of my parents’ house I have had an electric bill, along with a phone bill, car insurance, water, mortgage/rent etc. and just assumed those were non-negotiable numbers I was always going to pay. It wasn’t until last year that I really began to think about my spending, and where my money was going. Why wouldn’t you do that, and why hadn’t I been doing that all along? Who knows, but I do pay very close attention now. I shop my insurance rates out regularly. I recently refinanced my home. I drive a 1999 Ford Ranger that I make every attempt to repair when it’s within my skills, and replace parts with ones with lifetime warranties when possible. I am constantly working towards lowering my monthly expenses.
Last year (2020) In September, I called a solar installer to come give me a quote after reading a news article on google news about them, and a local business who had selected them to install solar. I did not get multiple quotes on the install, and the salesman used every tactic in the book on me. I paid $40,000 for 25 panels as well as the installation of a radiant barrier and extra blown in insulation in the attic. I feel like this might have been a little on the high side for the cost (hindsight), but at the time I was tunnel visioned on “lower electric bill” and justified it in my head that I will always have an electric bill, or rather be paying for electricity in my house, so does it really matter who the money goes to? The salesman got me with the free $1000 solar attic fan, which was only free if I bought from him within 48 hours. I will say that I do have a regret or two about the solar install and the decisions I made, but there’s no going back now. Just things I have to live with, and lessons learned for future Jimmy.
When I financed the solar, the financing company called and asked if I wanted to refi, and roll everything together, at a lower rate than I was paying now so I went ahead and did that. Really only costing me about $25 more a month on my house payment to include the solar. I used some cash out on that refi to pay to install a hybrid hot water heater (heat pump) which the EFL says costs about $100 a year to run instead of $500 like the 10 year old one I replaced. This cost about $3,300. I also recently had the HVAC system replaced with a new system that is a half-ton larger, and has the top of the line handler in the attic. Old system had electric heat, new system is a heat pump system, dual staged. This cost about $8,800
I have really gotten into the “data” side of my homes energy usage, and started keeping tabs on things. I have Alexa in every room in the house, and I installed Gosund light switches on every switch in the house. If they make a “smart home” option, I prefer it. Water heater has an app, HVAC has an app, Garage door has an app and security system has an app. I just wish I had bought the Sense monitor sooner, as I don’t have any data from before I made all of the changes to the appliances and started keeping track on things other than raw KWH monthly usage, so I really don’t have anything to reference to justify my decisions made. Sense was filling in the void I had with my Solar system and that was monitoring how much I was using, as compared to how much I was producing. The solar company installed the Enlighten system by Enphase, which was only giving me productivity numbers.
Interesting story about the Sense for me. After I purchased it, I took on the installation myself after watching a few YouTube videos and face timing my parent’s neighbor who is an electrician. When I opened the panel to install the CT’s, I spied two CT’s already installed on my mains. Did a little bit of digging, turns out when the solar installers put their equipment in, it had the capability to track consumption but they never turned it on. I called them and gave them hell on the phone and they offered to send me a check to cover the cost of the CT’s they installed… Doesn’t replace historical data. Still haven’t seen the check and that was a month or two ago.
I have really enjoyed daily checks on my total/overall energy picture of the house as provided by the sense energy monitor, as I said earlier, I wish I had put it in sooner.
And Hard 8 BBQ in Fort Worth is the best, hands down. Smoked Bologna sandwich on Jalapeno Sourdough bun for me.
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Welcome @medicjwilson,
Fun stories… Bummer that your solar installer didn’t hook up the mains CTs(sensors) for Enphase, but now you have Sense. I bought Solar via SolarCity (now Tesla) in 2013 (21 220W panels / 4.62kW) for 15.5k$ (with then tax credits going to them). Looking at another Sense user’s Enphase setup, it looks fairly nice.
But the Enphase net usage data is also less accurate vis a vis their utility numbers, vs. Sense.
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Hey All. I’m Dan. I live rurally in British Columbia near Nelson. I’m a nerd and data geek who currently works in disaster and emergence management. I’m new to sense as of this week and already obsessed!
As part of being resilient in rural Canada, I need to know that my devices are all working properly and on schedule. Specifically… Is my lake pump still pushing water up my 300’ cliff to my house? Does my jet pump pressurize my water tank on a consistent basis? Is my effluent pump running regularly so not to back up into the house? Are strategic heaters in my pump house and heat tapes on my water lines operating correctly to keep things from freezing? All the other stuff I’m expecting to learn from sense will be bonus!
Looking forward to seeing where this goes and how I can contribue.
Cheers
Dan
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As someone in a small apartment in Boston, this sounds like a lair of sorts .
