I’m about to say some maybe unpopular things, but please hear me out, because I want you as the customer to understand what’s really happening here, and how to think about these kinds of integration problems when you’re considering future IoT purchases.
I had a parallel issue with the orange box – ever since Sense killed the Schneider Wiser Home outlet integration, the majority of the value of the Wiser outlets is gone. As mad as I am about it, from an ecosystem perspective and as someone in the cloud software API/ecosystem industry, I can understand why it happened: when Schneider (who manages the firmware and app and API for the outlets) ended their commitment to support the integration, then Sense’s hands were pretty tied, with only two options:
- Sense could have “let” the Wiser integration die on the vine, in other words, let it keep working until eventually Schneider inevitably broke it–something that Schneider specifically said they would do–just to give those with the outlets a few more weeks (not months) of value. But if they did, at best, they’d have welcomed tons of support cases for Sense (which is cost that Sense bears), none of which Sense could fix… at which point they’d have to remove the integration anyway, OR
- Sense could do what they did, which was get out (mostly) in front of it, announce the deprecation, start removing the references in the app, and at least be transparent with their customers.
In this case, I think Sense took the more ethical approach overall, even though it meant that I’m personally out a bunch of money for these not-so-smart Wiser Home outlets which were expensive! $50 each at least, and I have no recourse to recouping that money. When I bought the outlet, nothing on the outlet box promised that it would work with Sense forever. And that’s my huge mistake: buying a handful of them to make up for Sense’s own shortcomings, like the inability to detect electronics, etc. More on that later!
Now, turning to today’s topic of the forced green box migration, it’s Schneider, not Sense, that’s once again screwing consumers, this time with the deprecation of the far superior Sense-based Wiser app and the forced migration of the green box to Schneider’s new trash app (which on top of missing features entirely is, even worse, just ugly).
Both of these issues are 100% on Schneider. You should absolutely take any remedy available to you now to get your money back from Schneider or whatever retailer sold you their boxes/outlets–Schneider’s half-baked ecosystem is now fully separate from Sense, and folks at Sense are not in a position to tell Schneider what to do. It’d be dope if we could flash orange firmware onto the green box, but don’t hold your breath. Even if it does happen, and it probably won’t, Sense may not have much incentive to support that tool. And it’ll be a hell of a pain in the ass, I promise, so you won’t enjoy doing it.
Sidebar: given the lack of engagement from Kasa, at what point will Sense also kill the Kasa integration? Sense hasn’t added support for new smart plugs in 5 years, right? If anything they’ve been removing plugs from their supported list as the dumpster fire that is Tapo took over Kasa. I have about 100 Kasa plugs (mostly HS300s) monitored right now via Sense and the Kasa integration is primary reason why I still even have a Sense monitor. This integration–which Kasa never officially supported or recognized, by the way–was almost certainly built into Sense as the side project of a small number of engineers (maybe even just one talented individual) who figured out how to reverse engineer the Kasa API and add value to the Sense app. But this value was probably never really critical to Sense’s long-term business, even if it did help to get Sense off the ground and into homes.
I hope folks understand a few key things, no matter how mad they are:
- Schneider’s motives are entirely their own and you should try to claw your money back from Schneider. They are no longer aligned with Sense. RIP.
- Ecosystems are hard and integrations only last as long as all involved parties continue investing in them. That’s no excuse for Schneider screwing people, nor is it any excuse for the lack of features that even orange-box Sense users have suffered, but it’s a fact of the industry. Early adopters beware: optimism is rarely rewarded.
- Sense has no subscription because you pay for the service with your data, which trains their AI models for load detection, which they then license to utilities. That’s how Sense makes money. It’s not from residential monitor sales. That’s why there’s no cash subscription to Sense, little to no innovation on the hardware, and no serious retail channel presence. (Read on for what do the utilities do with the data.)
- Small load monitoring is not critical to Sense’s business because it’s not relevant to their utility partners’ businesses. Figuring out how much power your PC or TV is pulling means almost nothing to the utilities’ bottom line (and thus Sense’s bottom line) because it’s peanuts compared to EV chargers, solar, and major appliances like fridges, A/C, heat pumps, washers, dryers, fridges, freezers, etc. which have always been better monitored than small loads, and, in some cases, are easier to monitor via dedicated circuits. It’s why Sense isn’t investing in smart plug monitoring–those features are irrelevant to their business model.
- Utilities want the data for grid-scale demand management, not for consumer-level insights. Utilities, especially investor-owned (private) ones like PG&E or SCE in California, are looking for ways to maximize the shareholder value of their grids, which usually means delaying expensive upgrades to that infrastructure as long as possible. For example, utilities use Sense data to help determine how much of the total load on the grid is coming from “non-essential” uses like EV charging and air conditioning–which they’d like to be able to control, i.e., via thermostat adjustments (see Ecobee “eco+” or Nest’s Rush Hour Rewards) or reducing the output of car chargers–compared to “essential” uses like refrigerators and freezers, which can’t be managed (limiting current to your fridge/freezer is a sure way to end up with spoiled food). Again, the combined current consumption of electronic devices in the average home is absolute peanuts, comparatively, and therefore doesn’t move the needle for the bottom line (see #4).
Really, this is all a cautionary tale in the world of IoT ecosystems and partnerships. You’re never guaranteed a long-term solution no matter what you buy, even if you pay a subscription (although subscription services typically have more sustainable business models). All of this stuff is temporary and the cash you spent is never coming back (unless you’re in the refund or CC chargeback window, in which case, you certainly should get your money back).
It’s deeply unfortunate for all of us. I really wanted Sense to be something more consumer-focused, but it was never going to be without a subscription and strong channel partners.
