Wondering if the people at Sense have been in contact with any of the water flow sensing companies?
Kohler has partnered with Phyn and is set to release their version. Grohe has Sense, Moen has Flow, then there is Flume, Flowie and a few others.
They are all competing in this new market and looking for their share. So I’d imagine some of them would be quite interesting in listening to new ideas and even possibly tweak their own products data resolution and exporting.
Sense itself has competition from others, as well as smart plugs, smart breakers and an ever advancing marketplace. My washing machine can tell me how much electricity its using, my shower can tell me the temperature of the water. None are quite a whole home product (yet).
Imagine if Sense partnered up with one of these water flow companies to integrate. Imagine if Sense could definitively say that motor and heat device is your washing machine, your ice marker, your water heater, dishwasher, etc… And seemingly more useful to eliminate false detections.
Not to mention being able to further diagnose any failures. Your dishwasher is using more electricity but less water per cycle, that’s why they are still dirty. The valve in your humidifier failed, that’s why your dehumidifier wont shut off. etc…
I’m sure it would take quite a bit of work to tweak Sense Algorithms to include new datasets, especially from outside sources. But I really do think this is something that needs to be explored.
The smart plug integration topic has been at the top of everyone’s Wishlist forever and isn’t going away. I imagine the engineers have been hesitant to involve themselves too much with the smart plug issue not only because of the resolution of data reported, but the fact that everything would get screwed up if someone plugged something else into the smart outlet. Hence why you can’t label/attach simple on/off plugs. With the water monitors this issue would be eliminated, thus providing Sense a much more accurate and reliable dataset to begin exploring this avenue. Not to mention the much needed collaboration and funding aspects if it all.
Sense labs with it detection of power dips/spikes and basic power quality issues is really nothing new or difficult to accomplish, large appliance manufactures are starting to include integrated motor stall and overcurrent protection/notification.
Sense has it’s place and is a great “tool”, I’ve become much more knowledgeable about my own home because of it. But the severe lack of integration with Sense is a major downfall especially when everyone else is focusing on just that.
Every time I see a topic about integration I hear why it can’t be done, mostly China smart plugs which is understandable despite other users finding a way to somewhat less accurately integrate them by emulating. But I almost never hear about Sense attempting to integrate regarding any of the things I first mentioned. Sure Sense somewhat works with a couple Kasa plugs and partnered up with Schneider to supply their version of Sense but that’s about it.
I just don’t want to see Sense become a thing of the past for refusing to integrate and surpassed by some collage kid on Github or whatever who comes up with a whole home system. Sure any other products would lack Sense’s learning ability, which is great and something nothing else can do, but has it’s flaws. That is why integration is key to making it more accurate and a more of an all around whole home product that would be way more marketable to potential end users in a world where people want immediate results.
