I’ve had Sense for 3 years now. Overall, I really like it, but at this point I’m wondering if I need to start fresh and reset.
My house is 100% electric, no gas. One of the first devices Sense ever identified was my water heater, which checks out as it is a massive energy hog when it’s on and probably represents 20-30% of the total usage of the house. Beyond that, Sense has done a really nice job identifying the other big appliances, and I’ve added several smart plugs to fill in gaps.
But about 8 months ago, Sense suddenly stopped detecting when the water heater turned on. I contacted support and waited it out a couple more months, but nothing ever improved. They suggested I delete the device, so I did back in May. Since then, still no water heater detected. I contacted support again, and they said there’s nothing they can do about undetected devices. This seems odd to me because it used to be detected really accurately, and now when I know it is on, I can see the giant obvious spike in the app.
The flex sensors are also not an option for me because my Sense monitor is in a sub panel outside the house, but the water heater breaker is in another box downstream on the other side of the house in the garage.
Anyway, all of that to say, I am wondering if I should just reset everything and start over. I know that is not normally recommended, but the fact that Sense is currently unable to detect one of the most obvious devices in my house (that is used to be able to handle perfectly) seems to tell me that something may be wrong in the data model somewhere, and the only real route for that is a reset. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did the reset go?
My refrigerator is like your water heater. Sense detected it relatively early, then lost the detection and support told me to delete it. It has not come back, even after waiting long enough. I suspect that the reason is in the quote above. As you note, a full reset seems overkill for getting a single device to reappear. I know you said they told you they can’t help with device detection, but maybe they didn’t realize that you are asking for a redetection.
It might be possible for technical support to go into the account and remove the deleted detection, which might allow detection to occur naturally. @JustinAtSense, do you know if your team can do this?
On our end Support can make adjustments to some models to fix in-app reporting issues for already detected devices such as:
Conflation
Stuck On (device is off in home but on in-app)
Not reporting after detected
And a few other less common examples
This isn’t a definitive “Support can help” list, but it does indicate that they cannot reverse the action that occurs when a user deletes a device model.
Thanks for getting back to me, Justin. Just to make sure, let me rephrase the question. I am not asking to undelete the device model. Rather, I would like to delete it more completely, so that even the record of it is gone. That way, the AI engine is able to discover without the limit of avoiding that past definition. Can support delete the traces of a deleted device?
I should have specified further, but no, Support is not able to delete the traces of a deleted device (or, how it is factored into potential model re-issues in the future.)
My gut just tells me something has to be off with my data that is preventing this from being detected again even after deleting it. Am I wrong thinking this device should be one of the easier ones to detect, which seems to be verified by how quickly it was originally found? I wouldn’t really care it was something smaller or even if it were something I could use a smart plug for, but it’s a 240v appliance and is probably the biggest individual energy user in the whole house. If Sense can track anything, surely it would be this?
I see where you’re coming from here and have some thoughts, but I want to follow up with some team members early next week to make sure my understanding of what factors could be at play here are accurate.
Hi @brbeaird - I spoke to our Data Science team and they informed me that the device you’re calling “Dryer Motor” appears to be conflating with the signature associated with your Water Heater and stopping it from firing.
If you’re still going to pursue a Data Reset, I might recommend deleting the “dryer motor” device before going through with that and letting Sense work for a few weeks to see if that conflation was impacting detection of your water heater.
After a few weeks, if that doesn’t work, it sounds like a data reset might be a more viable option (but can’t guarantee your water heater will be picked up immediately even with that change.)
@JustinAtSense@jefflayman you did it!! It’s been running for a few days now and seems to be doing a nice job keeping it detected. Thanks for your help!!
