Hello everyone, I just purchased a sense a couple weeks ago and it has not found very many devices. If I purchase one of the Kasa hs1100 plugs will it actually help sense to identify the device that’s plugged in and once it finds it can I unplug the hs110 and plug it into a new device?
So, what I am wanting to do is goto let’s say my microwave and plug the hs110 in let sense id the microwave and ill label it in sense then unplug it and then plug my dish network receiver into the hs110 and id it in sense and move on to the next device until I have everything labeled.
Nope, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. When you plug into an HS110 (or HS300), Sense connects to that wirelessly, creates a special bucket of power (named whatever you chose_, and shows that in tracking. It doesn’t “detect” that device (you configure it) or learn from its pattern. Among other reasons, Sense detects at a MUCH higher frequency than the HS110 reports. Sense also picks up both voltage and power readings then computes instantaneous power. It uses changes in those instantaneous patterns for detection.
The HS units have to stay connected, or you just lose any device(s) that had been connected that way. So the HS units are a work around for things Sense can’t reliably detect, not a learning aid. Of course, with enough HS110 or HS300, you don’t really need Sense at all. The costs of the HS for a house full of devices (153 in my home…almost $2,300) would be staggering, and not worth it for 90+% of them anyway.
Andy is correct. You will not have a persistent detection if you remove the smart plug. It’s a feature we’re working on and intend on adding in the future. It’s not as easy as it sounds! Devices don’t have “static” signatures that can just be cross-referenced with a dictionary of devices.
Opposing viewpoint for @kturney22. HS110s and HS300s are not a workaround, but a useful tool for the things that any electrically knowledgeable person would recognize as hard to detect (most anything with a modern AC to DC power supply - electronics, appliances with DC motors)
Deploying a smallish number of smartplugs on the biggest plug-in devices can greatly help with both analysis and Always On reduction.
Sense has told us that smartplugs are collecting data that is being used for learning. That would make it a “learning aid” in my books, even if we won’t see the results for a while.
Even using a single Smartplug can be moved around to capture a day, a week, or a month of device usage in Senseland, which is very helpful to understand long term usage patterns, before being moved to the next.
I personally find energy profiling of my undetected devices to be very helpful in figuring out possible ways to save. Examples of profiles here:
Here’s one more thought… The Sense / smartplug interface relies on ICMP broadcasts on the local subnet. I bought an new Orbi / Netgear pro-sumer switch setup using wired backhaul to expand bandwidth capacity to my network, but between the Orbi and the switch, I had a ton of functionality die, including my Sense / smartplug integration because both seemed to default to blocking ICMP broadcasts. I didn’t spend a lot of time to try to configure around that because the new setup wasn’t offering any speed benefits vs. my aging Apple / Netgear setup, plus it didn’t give me the added reporting benefits I was hoping for.
Having things work in one room and not another might be a symptom of ICMP blocking between access points.
I didnt think of that… it seems though once its connected and discovered I can then move it to whatever room I want which fine, ill just configure in one room. I have 4 more coming. I am trying to figure out my “always on” issue and where my power is going
4 more HS300s or HS110s ? I’m guessing that there is a top limit to the number of smartplugs / slots the current Sense monitor is able to handle, and I’m pretty near that limit at 30 (3 HS300s, the rest HS110s)
There is a limit and it was posted earlier, but since I had no personal interest I didn’t pay that much attention. I’m sure one of the high volume HS-xxx users can provide the data.
