I agree and disagree. From where I stand, Sense has done a reasonable to good job integrating with other smart devices. That’s partially a function of my original smart device choices, but also a function of which smart devices are the most straightforward to integrate. Some examples:
- Sense / Kasa Integration - Once upon a time I bought a couple of Eve Energy power monitoring smartplugs even before Kasa came along. They were nice because they worked with HomeKit, but were painful to pull data from (bluetooth-slow via a special Eve app, and only 5 min resolution). Sense with Kasa was a total breakthrough - easier setup, with good time resolution (every 2 sec instead of every 5 min). The Eve’s still have a place - they can be automated with HomeKit so they fit a couple of nice use cases for me. With the low profile KP115 replacement of the HS110, I can’t see a reason to buy any other power monitoring smartplugs unless you are looking for HomeKit or Google Home integration.
- Sense / Hue integration - Yes, I went with Hue to solve a couple of strange lighting challenges - mostly the ability to configure several large banks of lights that are on the same wired switch. But it turns out that works quite nicely with Sense for watching your low-usage bulbs, as long as your Sense is on a subnet that has wired ethernet as well.
- Sense / Ecobee integration - I used to have Nest thermostats, but when Google bought them out, innovation died for a few years and it got much harder to pull out data, so I transitioned to Ecobees. That worked out for me because they remained independent and open, and Sense built the Ecobee Historic integration that reads in my HVAC data to improve HVAC models. I can’t definitely say that that helped Sense do a better job with my AC, but I can say that native detection has improved over the years.
Sense vs. Ecobee: Round II - #31 by kevin1 - SenseLink / Sense / Home Assistant - I haven’t used it yet, but it seems like quite a few industrious folks have used this open source solution to pull data from a variety of power monitoring or calculating devices into Sense as emulated Kasa devices. So people with a little code experience can integrate additional devices as long as there is a path to power number.
Emulated Kasa integration Brings SenseLink to HomeAssistant
I do have a list of additional integrations I wish for:
- Tesla - Tesla has an informal OAuth 2.0 authenticated API - I’m betting that would give better results for my Model S, than the current detection. My Model 3 is on DCM, so that is accurate.
- NuHeat - I have 5 floor heating loops each controlled by their own smart thermostats. Once again, the thermostats have an OAuth 2.0 authenticated API that provides power info. Not a huge issue today since I have all 5 on DCM together, but would love to migrate the DCM to other less accessible 240V devices.
- LG Washer and Dryer - both of these are smart appliances and have an app that gives some measure of power. The LG app is crap, so I suspect that LG can never be counted on for a reasonable API, but I can wish. I have the Washer on an HS110, but would like to move one of my DCMs over to the Dryer one of these days.
- SubZero refrigerators - My 3 sub-zero units allegedly have a 200$ (each) module that allows them to to be connected to a Crestron automation system for both monitoring and control. The monitoring / control includes power management, including some weird and only narrowly implemented ANSI/CEA2045 standard for smartgrid-ready appliances. The good news is that Sense has detected at least some large percentages of the usage of these.
Standardized Communications for Demand Response - CTA-2045 Standard
Quite honestly, in my mind, home automation and energy is a currently a mess of conflicting and competing standards. I like the idea of Sense picking off the most valuable and stable ones for users, allowing some roll your own, like via SenseLink, and not trying to support every cheap new smartplug that comes on the market.