Attached is
JPEG of Pool Pump turning on in morning.
It turns ON every morning via a timer at 9:46AM local time.
It turns OFF every afternoon via a timer at 4:12PM local time.
Regards,
Karin
It turns ON every morning via a timer at 9:46AM local time.
It turns OFF every afternoon via a timer at 4:12PM local time.
1 Like
Forgot to add that Sense has been installed for a little over one month, and has not indicated that it has found the device. Even naming it something else. Sense doesnāt seem to know it exists, although it is being reported in the āOtherā category.
Karin
If it isnāt something it commonly sees, it might take a little longer to build up the data it needs m. I know, we hate hearing this, but that is just how the back end works. The good thing is, that signature looks very unique, so when it does add the device, it should be easily recognizable going forward.
Hopefully Sense can add Pentair integration! I love their application; it allows me to modify pump scheduling via my phone. And noā¦Sense has not found the pool pump 
in the 2 months it has been running since install.
Hello mstraka606. There are a few pool pump detection threads on the forum and it would be great for you to share your experience. I have 2 pumps myself, 1 variable pentair and 1 static no-name brand. I had sense installed in Feb and neither pump has been detected yet. There is a question to the sense team about pool pump detection in the upcoming webinar so Iām hoping to learn more there. Please keep us posted on your progress as pool pumps are a huge power consumer for many people.
Iāve been lucky, reliably found mine within weeks.
1 Like
Iām not saying you would really want to do this, but in my experience, Sense canāt find anything that runs for any extended time period. Maybe others are having better luck. It might be able to identify it if you cycled it more frequently. i.e. Run for 15 minutes. Then off for 15. Then on for 15. It would probably find it then because it would get 15+ iterations of the same signature in a day as opposed to only one signature. Once Sense has found it, you can probably leave it on for longer periods (like you have now), but I think it needs more frequent cycling to identify it in the first place.
1 Like
I wasnāt able to attend the webinarā¦but Iām hoping to see some summary notes on the topic. Iāll certainly let everyone know if/when I have success on the pool pump(s).
Hereās mineā¦hasnāt been detected yet either but Iāve been around for 8 or 9 days:)
Here is my pool pump starting today. Sense thinks itās the AC until the AC actually starts and then it moves the pump to Other.
Wouldnāt you be better off running it at night, where the electricity rates should be cheaper?
That depends on where you are and your utility. Here in the mountains of NH, there is just one rate, 24x7x365ā¦too high
About two weeks ago I started this thread with a screen shot of my pool pump starting with Sense capturing the waveform. Well two days ago Sense reported that it has found my pool pump. All well and good you say. Well not so fast. Sense is reporting the power used as only about half of what is actually using, thereby abandoning the other half of power used in the āOtherā category. What follows is my attempt to explain what is really happening with the pump motor starting sequence and how Sense is reporting. First off a bit of background about me. I am a retired Electrical Engineer have a good deal of experience in developing algorithms for embedded systems. I also have a good deal of experience with electric motors varying size from single horse power motor all the way up to large horse power three phase synchronous motors. What Sense is seeing when my pool pump motor starts is an initial transient which is basically the stalled rotor starting current. Because the pump motor and the associated pump and pool plumbing had been off for a substantial period of time the pump itself has lost some of its prime. So immediately after the pump motor starts it is not operating at its full load. It takes some time for the pump to become fully primed, which is shown by the gradual ramping of power shown in the plot. One other user that has posted their pump also shows this trend. I know that the Sense Team has been working hard to develop their āsuiteā of algorithms for various devices, so Kudos to the Team. My observation on how to improve Pool Pump reporting would be to detect the pump and motor actually starting then wait a few seconds or maybe even minutes, to then correctly sample the Full Load current from the motor. This can very difficult to implement for all varieties of pump motors, so It isnāt a task for the weak of heart. I hope my explain is of some value to any of the algorithm developers, and also to the many Sense users. I can add more discussion to this very tricky detective story if any one wants to comment. Regards, Karin
Please stick around karinann and help the Sense team in the motor/variable speed departments. They are usually big power users and they canāt seem to nail down a way to detect something that looks quite obvious to the human eye.
I would like to be included in whatever discussion is had so we can help as much as possible.
Knowing the usage of these big items seems more important than knowing how much a Phillips Hue bulb is drawingā¦
Itās not clear, is your pool pump variable speed or single speed. My single speed pump was recently detected after 6 months but my variable speed pump has not been identified yet. That being said I do believe that Sense is getting better in detecting both types of pool pumps so please work with their support and hopefully theyāll identify your pump as well.
1 Like
My āconstant pressureā well pump also has a ramp up characteristic, in addition to variable load depending on how much water flow is required to maintain pressure. For example, if a faucet is running, there is one ramp up and eventual load, but if someone turns on a second faucet (or any other water consumption, the power ramps up further to accommodate the higher required flow rate.
So, pumps can be pretty āinterestingā from a load detection point of view.
The motor on my pool pump is a single speed type motor. The integrated pump/motor itself is a StaRite model. The original motor has been replaced about a year ago, before I had Sense installed. The current operating motor is a Century Motor, I believe marketed by A.O.Smith. It is a One (1) horsepower motor rated.
Hereās another take on my specific pool pump. Attached is new screen shot of pump motor turning on. Below is table of power values read off the screen shot.
Time Power(watts) Comment
9:46:13 311 Just before pump turns on total usage seen by Sense
9:46:28 1487 Motor starting transient
9:46:31 765
9:46:41 804
9:46:52 987 Motor and pump is obtaining prime
9:46:59 1208 power is ramping up
9:47:06 1486
9:47:10 1701
9:47:19 1750
9:47:48 1761 Motor at steady state
The data in the above table is taken from the below screen shot.
If you subtract the 311 watts from just before the pump turns on you will get the actual
power used by the pump. You can see that after the starting transient the first power
reading would result in 765-311=454 watts for motor power. At steady state the motor is
actually drawing 1761-311=1450 watts. Considerably more than the 735 watts that Sense
reports.
Oh one other thing, when Sense first found the pump motor it declared it as
āDevice 1ā. The choice of user names put Pool Pump as the number one choice in the suggested list of devices, so that is what I labeled it. And I verified it the next day as the
Pool Pump when the motor turned on.
The screenshots donāt look the same as the graphs for my pool pump, Iāll try to upload then later. My single speed spikes then drops to a constant power usage. Itās interesting that your motor takes a few minutes to get up to speed.
Itās not a matter of the pump motor getting up to āspeedā. When the motor turns on after
the stalled rotor starting transient ( about one second or less after power is applied), the motor is already at its rated speed. In my case the rated operating speed is 3450 RPM. What you are seeing in the graph of Sense is the current/power being drawn by the motor as it is further loaded with the water it is pumping. In my case the system has lost some of its prime, so there is a bit of air in the system and the pump itself doesnāt have to work as hard move a combination of air and water, air being less dense than water. As the system regains its prime there is less air in the system and now the pump and motor are required to do more WORK. Thus more energy drawn from the electrical system and what you see is the ramp in my screen shot. If you could have a system that has not lost any of its prime and is completely void of any air in the system, then you would see the starting transient and no or at least a very small ramping of power. In other words the starting and final running power would be very, very close to the same value of power used.
1 Like