Well there is no way to say this without asking for a handout but you should look to the community for testers and free or very discounted. I’ve been really hoping that sense would be a great product and honestly there is no way to put this other than for me its fallen short. I got sense b/c my utility company keeps sending me things saying I’m a top energy user, Sense reports say the same thing, but to date I haven’t really been able to isolate big users nor been able to figure out my “always on” devices in any way, but I’ve stuck with Sense in thinking that its really got a bright future.
What you should really do is also partner with a company that makes electrical panel and come out with a panel-with-sense in a box that as delivered can combine the auto learning of sense with being able to identify every circuit.
Can you imagine the power of saying something like “We can’t figure out your 1000W of always on but we know that 400W of it is on circuit Master Bedroom” or something like that?
Its a long term proposition to be sure. I would have loved it when I redid my panel about 10 years ago.
Agree that there is still lots of room for improvement and that it would be great if Sense integrated with a smart load center (one of their big investors is Schneider Electric / Square D, so I would suspect that there are already thoughts in that direction). On the flip side, there are ways to size up Always On and major energy hogs by using the Power Meter.
For Always On, you can wait until the house is fairly electrically quiet and simply flick each breaker off then back on again, observing the difference in the Power Meter (and presuming you don’t have any optional loads on at the time - lights, motors and heating units off). For the major energy hogs, in my house, I just look at their profile in the Power Meter and estimate how often they come on.
Im not exactly sure but aren’t the sensors supposed to be both with the logo (sticker) in the same direction? to me one sensor is adding and the other is subtracting. Someone please explain this orientation
When you install the sensors and the device does a signal check it will figure out the orientation and provide the correct info, although it may flip back and forth for a few days. I have an extremely tight busbar and the only way to close the sensors completely was to mount one upside down compared to the other. This is why it took DAYS to settle down, if they are both the same orientation, either way, it will recognize it, but even if you put them backwards to each other it will eventually work.
Depending on which batch of flex sensors you received, your stickers may vary a bit from the instructions.
Per the instructions, you want the Sense logo facing the breaker. This means the solar facing away from the breaker.
If your Flex clamps don’t have a Sense house logo, you still want the Sense Solar sticker facing away.
Or to put it another way, if you think of the power coming from your breaker going to your device, you want the Solar sticker on the side where the cable continues out to your device.
@israndy, for Flex sensors, the orientation does have to be correct. It is a different process than the main CT clamps which are able to be installed and not match the instructions.
Does putting your clamps like this measure your house Correctly with the wattage and device finding ect. I have mine set up differently with the flex sensors but I don’t like how it’s showing it on the app looking at doing it the way you have it.
Why don’t you include a picture of how your install is and a picture from Settings → my home → sense monitor → Signals area. I don’t think we know what “like this” means unless you show us.