New Sense user here. Had Sense installed as part of my solar install (last Thursday, the 15th). Still waiting on the utility interconnect paperwork to be finished, so currently no solar actually being produced but I went ahead and started tracking consumption.
On like the 3rd day, Sense told me it detected a device and that 93% of people marked it as a dryer. So I let Sense name it dryer. But later that day, it started telling me the dryer was on, but it definitely wasn’t. The stove was on. So I renamed it stove. I felt pretty confident at this point it was the stove because I kept getting notifications that the stove was turning on and off while my wife was cooking. Well, that evening (probably about 3 or 4 hours later) we did some laundry. When we started the dryer, Sense started telling me that the stove was turning on and off. So I renamed it Dryer. But then last night when cooking on the stove, it kept telling me the dryer was running, so I renamed it stove again.
I’m just a little confused as to how to handle this. It’s obviously detecting both devices, but it detects them as the same. I know there is a way to merge devices (like when it detects separate parts of a dishwasher or something) but is there a way to split one up?
Leave the device name as what Sense thought it was: “Dryer”, and when Sense detects it as your stove tell Sense it’s actually NOT your stove as detailed here:
You cannot manually split anything up. That’s exponentially more complex than merging.
Likely, the signatures for dryer and stove look very similar. It’s not an uncommon conflation, given that they’re both high-wattage heat sources. They tend to look the same. You can learn more about how devices can get conflated here: Behind the Scenes: When Good Devices Go Bad - Sense Blog
You could do as @ixu writes and report devices as Not On. That won’t have any instantaneous effects, but will send the info to the Data Science team which can hopefully result in some model refinement.
I would suggest not going back and forth renaming for now and let Sense gather more data. As it pulls in more data, the models should start to work better. That’s what I would do in my home, at least. You can also reach out to the Support team and they can look at your data and better advise.
When using the “this device is not on” button it is very important to pick the device that triggers the detection and NOT use the button for that device.
Let’s say that every time your stove is on that it triggers that detection but the dryer and dishwasher only do it 75% of the time, the ones triggering the least is where to use the device not on button.
A bit time consuming but I find it takes about 3 uses for Sense to get better
Okay, that makes sense. I’ll give it more time and see what it does. I do have it set to notify me when it’s detected, so I’ll use the “this device is not on” report next time I notice it.
Followup question. I have a device that Sense detected as “dishwasher” that is clearly not my dishwasher. When I look at the day graph, I can see it using a very small amount of energy every hour on day 1 and 2 (so last Thurs and Fri) but then Sense hasn’t detected it using any power since then. Should I delete it? Reclassify it as mystery device? Also, on this same topic, this “dishwasher”, when I go to manage, has a toggle for “This is a guess” which adds a (?) to the device name. I like this because it shows me at a glace which devices I’m not 100% sure about yet. How come this toggle comes up for this device but not others?
So far after just a few days, Sense has detected my chest freezer (Sense thought it was my fridge but I figured out it was the freezer) and my water heater. It’s still trying to work out the dryer and stove. I was also impressed with the always on calculation. We have an air purifier in the bedroom, and it usually just runs 24/7. It has been running the entire time I’ve had sense and has not been powered off. Last night, as a test because I was curious, I wanted to know if it was being included in always on or other, so I powered it off. Despite never having seen it turn on or off before, Sense knew this belonged in other and not always on. Right now my always on seems to be pegged at a constant 200w.
I wouldn’t delete that device yet. The rule of thumb I use is a 2 week timeframe. If I get a detection that gets lost, I wait that long before deleting. Most of the time, the device will be picked up again.
I personally don’t like leaving “this is a guess” switch active. Sense will rename a device on you and has actually deleted a few on me because of it. Every detection I rename. Usually I just add a question mark to the name so I know it’s one I need to pay attention to but I do t want Sense to mess with.
Well, Sense now has a separate device for stove and dryer, so I assume that means progress is being made. We haven’t use the dryer yet, but we probably will later today or tomorrow.
The mystery device that Sense thought was my dishwash is my air handler. I figured it out by waiting for it to turn on and then switching off breakers until it disappeared. It turned off immediately when I flipped the breaker for the air handler. I reclassified it as a fan in Sense, but I am still not 100% convinced that’s what it is. I might split that topic off into a new thread later.
Overall I’m pretty impressed with Sense so far. Less than a week and it’s detected my chest freezer, water heater, and garage door opener with 100% accuracy. It’s detected my stove, dryer, and air handler; jury is still out on the accuracy so far. And it’s detected a mystery “heat 1”. This could potentially be the waffle maker, toaster oven, a different part of the stove, or the heating element of the dishwasher. Hopefully with a little more time, myself or Sense will figure this one out.