New user - help needed please

Identifying Devices in Your Home
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I have a device (CPAP machine) plugged into one of the plugs on a Kasa strip. Sense corrrectly records the activity, but despite several attempts in the app, I cannot “tell” Sense what this device is - if I edit the device and try to save it nothing happens. I’d like to move the strip to another room to try to identify more devices… Any tips?

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First off, just confirm - are you using a Kasa HS300 outlet strip ?

Two thoughts:

  1. If you are going to be moving a Kasa smartplug around between devices, you really don’t want to keep changing the device info. That doesn’t help you or Sense. Better to name it Roaming HS300 Outlet 1, etc., until you figure out your long-term install for the HS300.
  2. So when you fill in the info in the Details tab (below), it doesn’t save ? Wondering if you have made it through the full setup process ? You might want to try turning off the Kasa integration and turning it back on again.

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I’m sorry, I don’t think I phrased my question clearly. Now I know that the CPAP is the device plugged into the HS300, how do I move the HS300 somewhere else and “teach” the Sense that the CPAP is now plugged into an ordinary outlet?

If I cannot do this, I’m not sure what the value is of using a smart plug to identify the usage by a device - surely the Sense then needs to be able to identify and separate those devices from “other”?

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Hi @ajax010 - for the Smart Plug integration Sense sees the plug, not the device. In order to continue detecting the CPAP device, it needs to remain connected to the Smart Plug. Sense does not have a manual training mode, for reasons we’ve discussed at length in other forum threads. We go through serious lengths to make sure we’re clear about this in help documentation and knowledge-base resources, so please let me know if you read something that you may have misinterpreted so we can take a look.

The purpose of smart plugs is that by leaving them connected, they can reduce your ‘Always On’ and ‘Other’ bubbles and give you dynamic control via the smart plug apps over traditionally “dumb” devices.

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The quick answer is that you can’t. Sense doesn’t “learn” devices plugged into the HS 300 (the power collection process it totally different), it just reports what the HS 300 has told it is plugged into that port. So, when you plug your CPAP into a regular outlet, Sense starts from scratch.

When you use that HS300 port for something else, you have to tell it that and it then would report the new name to Sense.

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My take. As @JustinAtSense, suggests, smart plugs are good for reducing Other and Always On in a targeted way, once you:

  1. have a good handle on what Sense is detecting and not detecting in your house
  2. have a good view of of the relative Always On and typical usage for devices that Sense is not detecting. That’s probably the best use of your HS300 (or a KP115) right now, as a roamer, looking at the 24-48 hour time histories of all the plug-in devices that are unlikely to be detected. That gives you a way to best use smartplugs if you want to reduce Always On and Other, beyond Sense detections.

Here’s a simple view of what’s likely to be detected by Sense and what’s not.

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