I removed the smart plug from my HVAC system over a month ago and I am now using it to turn on and off my Halloween decorations outside BUT I am unable to remove the HVAC system from the “what’s plugged into this?” and its still reporting the HVAC under the smart plug. I have also renamed the smart plug in my Kasa app and it updated on its own in my Alexa app BUT doesn’t do that in the Sense app. I’ve submitted a trouble ticket in the app and only received the auto reply so far.
I have even gone into the settings and under connected devices and disabled TP-Link smart plug and my TP-Link smart plugs are still showing up in the app. It seems every time Sense takes one step forward it immediately takes 3 steps back.
Hi @mike_gessner. Thanks for already submitting a ticket for your issue here. Based on the screenshot you sent Support, I would guess that there’s an issue connecting to the Sense server to communicate the changes you’ve made with your smart plug. Support should be able to assist you further with this, and I’m keeping an eye on your ticket.
When I go under settings and look at the Sense monitor its showing its connected to my network and the signal strength is showing 2 out of 3 bars BUT every not and then it looses connection to my network and it takes me almost an hour each time to reconnect it. I’ve also noticed that when I click on the power meter I end up seeing large gaps in the data which will eventually populate but sometimes takes a while. To me it seems like there is an issue with the Sense meter’s Wi-Fi
I ordered a 16ft WiFi extension cable to try and get the antenna closer to my WiFi router and hopefully this might fix my issues.
This is usually the first recommendation we have for users with WiFi strength issues and will probably be the first suggestion from Support. Running a network connection test will let you know how your signal strength is looking between your WiFi access point and Sense Monitor.
You may find that this actually makes things worse. The longer the cable, the more power loss due to length of cable and its very easy for that power loss to be greater than the gain from moving the antenna closer to the access point.
It may work great for you, but I want to mention it so if things don’t improve, you know what to remove to get back to testing.
@mike_gessner thanks for sharing this. It looks like the smart plug related issue you reported is in fact a bug. We’ve deployed a fix for your home that should come into effect sometime today. You should be hearing back from Support shortly on your ticket.
Okay so I was able to remove the HVAC from my smart plug BUT my sense was still acting slow and yesterday I turn off the TP-Link option and wasn’t able to torn it back on. after messing around with this the 16’ extension cable showed up and I was able to get it routed so the antenna was 11’ closer to my home Wi-Fi network. I was actually able to get it to finish a network test and I screen shot the results BUT then decided to put everything back to the way it was so I could do another network test to compare the results and couldn’t get it to finish a network test after this. I tried for an hour and nothing seems to work and I am pretty sure its an issue with the sense meters internal Wi-Fi adapter. I now have it setup like it was before the extension cable showed up and its barely reporting and the bubbles in the app keep going in and out. Not sure what order the pictures will show up in but the one results from the network test that did show up is with the extension cable plugged in and then after that i kept getting test failures and even when it said it wasn’t connected to my network i was able to go into my network app and see that it was showing up on my home network.
What is your router / access point?
If you tap the arrow next to the Sense in your device list, what info / options does it give?
Your wifi connectivity does seem to be problematic, but whether its the Sense or your wifi is hard to tell.
Which image is with the extender
IMG_4832 - “Connection Test Results”
or IMG_4820 - “Connection Test, There may be a potential issue”
What is interesting is that IMG_4820 shows a signal strength of -66. Not great, but not terrible. The upload speed is a little odd. Thats why I’m wondering what info your router can give from its status screen.
The other question - how many smart plugs do you have? How many other wifi devices do you have on your network? I’m wondering if this is an airtime fairness issue.
My router is a Linksys WRT1900AC router.
When I go into my app for my router it still says that my sense is connected but when i go into the Sense app it says its offline BUT its sill giving me notifications when things are turning on and off and every now and then the bubbles on the app show up.
My Wi-Fi seems to be fine and I can still control my smart plugs in my house without any issues and some of the plugs are further away from my router than my Sense monitor. I also have an original iPad 1 in the garage that I stream TV shows on while I’m out there working and its on the same 2.4GHz channel and my Linksys app says my iPad has a weaker signal than the Sense which is only 7 feet away.
4820 was with the extender on and after I switched the antenna back to the original short extender I couldn’t get my Sense to complete another network test and just kept giving me the can’t talk to sense error and like I said the sense app says my sense network is offline but I’m still getting intermittent updates on the app showing things turning on and off.
I have about 24ish devices on my network and right now only 21 BUT my computer, my daughters computer and the Sense monitor have priority on the network and I only have about 10 things that are actually on the 2.4GHz channel.
I just went out to the garage and put the antenna on the short extension cable that came with the sense monitor and came back inside and now in the sense app it says its connected to my network but I’m still getting this error when I run a network test. I would also like to point out that I am running the network test from my desk in the house and I’m in the same room as my router AND I’m still close enough to the Sense monitor to allow my phone to connect directly to it without having to go to the garage.
So as of this morning it seems as if my Sense is working again like it was yesterday before I ran the network tests so once I get home this afternoon I’m gonna run another network test again without changing anything and see if that is what’s causing my issues which I’m pretty confident it will and as I said before I’m pretty sure it’s the network adapter in the sense that seems to be the issue.
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As I suspected I ran a network test and it finished the test and I waited about two hours and tried again and sure enough it tells me it cannot connect to my network again. It seems to be an issue with the sense monitor itself and not my network. I also don’t have issues with anything else in my house connecting to my network and my sense monitor network issues have seemed to have gotten worse over the past year.
Okay so after several days of playing around with Sense in the Sense app it took me several tries over a couple hours and I was finally able to get Sense to remove TP-Link, Wemo and Philips Hue from my integrations list and then I ran a network test and it came back as good. Here are the results from my network test with the sort antenna extender being used. I am going to add my 16’ antenna extender and run the test again and I’ll post the results when I’m done.
Okay so I just ran the network test a bunch of times and with and without the different antenna extenders and also with other antennas that I have and the best setup appears to the the Sense supplied antenna with the Sense supplied antenna extender. After putting the Sense antenna and antenna extender back on I was able to run the network test one last time and got the exact same result as above showing it is connecting and showing a good signal. I also measured it out and my Sense is only 34ft from my router so the distance was never an issue as I suspected BUT I was concerned about other things like tools in my garage and my hot water heater that is 4ft from my Sense causing network issues but apparently isn’t an issue and it turns out its a Sense integration issue. After running the network tests I also remembered I have my Ecobee added so I tried to remove that and that also took several attempts in which I had to restart the app several times before it finally let me remove it.
@mike_gessner I checked in with Support and recommend you work with them in your existing ticket. There’s a few things going on that point to some existing issues that they will be able to break down for you specifically, as they are the only ones who can see what’s going on behind-the-scenes.
The last I heard from support was Thursday morning and I responded back with the answers to the questions that they asked but haven’t heard anything since. I have gone back in and added my smart devices back into the Sense monitor and it appears to have effected the network again. I am going to be out of town for two weeks and cant play around with it anymore so I’m just going to leave it like it is until I get back that way I can monitor the usage at my house while I’m gone.
I have been back home for a few days and have been back at trying to figure out my issues with my Sense monitor. I removed all my smart devices from my Sense monitor and just ran a network test a few minutes ago and it came back good as it should being that its only 35ft from my network which is well within an acceptable range. I have tried to add my TP-Link smart plugs back to my Sense monitor twice now since yesterday and now it seems that my Sense monitor is having issues adding these devices again. when I have done this in the past it has usually added my devices within 1 or 2 minutes of turning this feature on but now I am getting nothing. It appears to be an issue with my Sense monitor itself but when I try to open a trouble ticket I keep getting the runaround and I’m being told its a network issue which it isn’t.