Smart plug issues

@mike_gessner Where did you wind up in your Support ticket? I was able to check-in with the Support agent handling your case, who is able to see the actual diagnostics behind the scenes. From what I remember, there were several concerning diagnostic results that Support was trying to work with you on. Since our Support team has access to all of those diagnostics and there are no similar reports from other users (typically, we’d see a bunch of tickets for a bug involving smart plugs), I would recommend following up on your original ticket with Support to help resolve this issue.

We’re limited in what we can do for you here, as we can’t see all that back-end information.

I sent a response email to Zach in support who last responded to me about my ticket. I would have never noticed the issue had I not tried to look at a specific smart plug to look at the power usage and noticed that the plug wasn’t showing up in Sense. That’s when I noticed the Wi-Fi issues and issues removing and reinstalling smart plugs. Just because there aren’t a bunch of tickets open doesn’t mean there isn’t an issue or maybe its just an issue with my Sense monitor being that I’m the only one having this issue.

Hey @mike_gessner, thanks for clarifying. I’ll touch-base with Zach and see if he can check back in on your ticket.

Based on how this issue is presenting itself, we can rule out the issue being related to hardware. This is either a bug with the integration (as i mentioned, we’d typically see more tickets surrounding this), a network issue or a smart plug data reporting issue. I’m hopeful that when Zach reaches back out, he can provide more information on what we’re seeing on our end.

Okay so I was posting some updates in a different post because someone’s comments were taken from here and moved to a new post so I’m just going to update what’s been going on in here. I ended up getting a Linksys range extender and putting that in my garage to add to my network. That part is done and I am still seeing the same issues as before so its clearly not a Wi-Fi connection issue. I have 31 TP-Link (3 HS300 and 13 HS110) smart plugs and 2 Wemo smart plugs. I added all of these plugs over a year ago and they worked with Sense without issue up until recently. About 6 months ago I started adding Philips Hue lights in my house and I have a total of 19 Philips Hue lightbulbs now. These also worked without any issues until recently. I haven’t added anything new in the past 6 months to Sense and my network setup has been the same since 2016 and hasn’t changed at all since adding Sense to my home up until today when I added a range extender which is the only change to my network. About a month or so ago I started to notice a lot of dead spots in my Sense reporting and I figured it was just a bug or something and figured it would get sorted out like it usually does but this time it didn’t. Its been about a month now and my Sense monitor still isn’t working like it was 6 months ago. I don’t want to lose all my data thats been collected by Sense but I’m also not going to accept my Sense not working like it was 6 months ago so I feel like a reset is my only option but I have to figure out if I need to do a “Reset Data or Factory Reset”. This is where I am at and any advice would be appreciated.

Okay so I am really at a loss now. I was about to do a Reset Data in the app but wanted to look at the data on the web app and this is what I saw. The app on my iPhone and iPad show one thing but when I look at my Sense on my computer it shows something completely different. It appears to be a bug or something going on with my account.

Okay so I tried to do a “Reset Data” in the app and got a data reset failed error that said this feature is temporarily disabled. Now my annoyance level with these issues is starting to really frustrate me. I really liked my Sense before and now I’m starting to hate this thing.

As mentioned in the other thread, there are A LOT of variables that contribute to WiFi issues.
Also as mentioned in the other thread, Sense is experiencing API issues right now which makes anything you do to test your network suspect because we don’t know if the issue is the current API transfer issues, or wifi or something else.

Data reset was disabled. This was posted in the forums by the Sense team

You have yet to answer questions about what your wifi setup is. This most recent post does add more information about your TP-Link and Hue setup. But what is the base of the network. What is your access point. What is the network extender. How did you set the network extender up? Did you make sure that the Sense is connected to your new extender? Extenders are not a magic fix.

It was also advised that the Sense recommends about 20 smart plugs. You are at 33. The fact that it did work and now doesn’t does not necessarily indicate a problem with the Sense.

You may not have added anything in the last 6 months, but that doesn’t mean things haven’t changed.
Access points fail. Radios in an access point slowly degrade and lose performance due to heat. A neighbor could have added a non DECT cordless phone. A capacitor in the back of your TV could have popped causing major RF in the 2.4Ghz spectrum. A heating blanket could be being used when it didn’t used to be. Your router or access point could have received a firmware update

If you a are interested continuing troubleshooting, I would suggest the following:
Network set up:

  • If you can tell us about it. What is the network hardware (make/model of router / access points / extenders).
  • Do you have only 1 SSID, or do you broadcast multiple? 2.4Ghz or 5? Both?
  • How is the extender set up. Is it using the same name as your main network or does it have its own name.
  • Aside fro the Hue and TP-Link - anything else to note about devices connected to your network? If you can, log into your router / access point and let us know how many wireless clients it says is connected, and if it tells you, how many on 2.4 vs 5Ghz radios.

Once the API issue is solved, but before performing a data reset, it would be interesting to try taking some of the TP links off of the network and see if you see any difference. Literally just unplug a bunch of them to get you under the 20. Don’t remove them from any of the apps. Just un plug them so they actually disconnect from the WiFi. Give the network a few minutes to settle and then see if the remaining plugs are performing any better. If so, start adding some back in and see how you do. I know the Sense team is also working on the TP link settings, but this is something you should be able to do without touching any configurations.

I am not saying that there isn’t a problem with your Sense, but we also haven’t ruled out your network which feels suspect based on the issues you are having in the app.

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First I guess I should start by saying that I have been an Electronics Technician in the Coast Guard for over 20 years now and I am a fire control/communications/navigation/2M/MTR tech so I think I might know a little bit about the variables involved here and I have taken all these into consideration and I know about RF wave propagation and RF signal degradation.

I haven’t been on the forums as much over the past 10 months so I had no idea that Data reset was disabled in the app. Not everyone comes to the forum to see if the app has had a feature disabled or now. Maybe it would be a good idea to add a News feature to the app that you could click on and would tell all Sense app users if there was an issue or if something was temporarily disabled.

I have answered your question about my Wi-Fi setup which I posted above. I have a Linksys WRT1900AC router and I just added a Linksys RE6300 range extender yesterday. My router is in the middle of my house (single story 1800sqft) about 32-35ft away from my Sense monitor so it is well within the acceptable distance for the 2.4GHz band. With a direct line of sight there are two walls between my router and the Sense monitor but nothing significant that could cause that much interference to effect the Wi-Fi signal.

If you read my comments and my question about my plugs you would know that even though Sense says I’m at 33 plugs it sees these 33 plugs as only 18 plugs because I have 3 HS300’s which account for 18 of those plugs and is only seen as 3 plugs by Sense. There is approximately 40ft between my house and my neighbors house’s on either side of me and approximately 80ft to my closest neighbor behind me and approximately 200ft to my closest neighbor across the street from me.

Again I have answered your question about my router and the pictures below should answer your other questions.

I have completely ruled out the issue being my network and my network wouldn’t have anything to do with the issues I am having in the app. I removed all integration from Sense last night and this morning one of my TP-Link plugs started showing up under my devices so again this isn’t a network issue on my end its an issue with Sense and more than likely an issue on the Sense server where all the data is managed is probably part of the API issue.

Oh and all the LiquidDragon networks are mine and obviously the one’s with Ext at the end are the range extender and the fireTV is mine as well and the only one that isnt is the NETGEAR10 which is my closest neighbors wifi.

Sense and KASA plugs like to be on the same WAP. They don’t like my WLC so I have them on an old WAP. I downgraded it to 802.11B to give it more range(and a lot less bandwidth) and chose a channel at the edge of the Spectrum (I have dozens of WAPs in the neighbourhood plus buses go past with wifi every two minutes. My WLC sees 100 2.4 Ghz WAP and only a dozen 5Ghz WAPs. Most of my stuff runs on 5Ghz). The sense wap is in the basement at the front of the house. It happily communicates with KASA plugs at the rear of my house, say 50ft away(to fridges in the kitchen and a TV on the 2nd floor) as well as a freezer in our stand alone garage.

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Knowing that there is an issue with the Sense network and that these issues aren’t isolated to me makes me feel better about my Sense monitor and I am led to believe that my new network extender probably solved my network issue and I’m feeling confident that once the Sense team has isolated and fixed the current API issue my Sense monitor will be reporting normally again and all will be good.

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So I did a Reset Data yesterday on my system and after doing that I was finally able to add my TP-Link and Wemo plugs back to my Sense monitor integrations BUT my mains and solar CT readings were off and all over the place and then about 30 minutes ago my mains and solar CT clamp reading appear to be reading correctly now. The part that sucks is that I have lost all my historical data on Sense which is weird because when I did a data reset in the past and logged back into my account all my data was still there. This is another thing about Sense that I do not like and I think it would be much better if your profile stored your usage and device information so if you have to do a data reset or if you replace a faulty Sense monitor with a new one you don’t lose all that valuable information. When I did my data reset on my Sense monitor and logged back in my home details and device inventory were still there and none of that has changed so that makes me wonder what is the point of device inventory of the historical data isn’t being saved to the devices. It seems like the Sense team has made a great product and the app layout is great but seem to have fallen short when it comes to the way this data is being collected and stored for the individual users. It seems like the Sense monitor acts like a smart plug and that the data is being stored with the Sense monitor and the power reading by the smart plugs is being associated to the smart plug and not the device that you have selected as what is actually plugged into the smart plug. Again I feel that it would make things much better on us end users if this data was being saved to out profile and the devices that we have told Sense we have in out house either under the Device inventory or when a device is discovered and we have gone through and verified and labeled these devices.

Hi Mike. When you say your data was still present after a data reset in the past, what data are you referencing? A data reset should wipe all the historical and device data from your account, so I don’t see anything out of the ordinary with the results you received (other than the initial issues with your CT’s attempting to recalibrate).

I looked back through my posts to try and find when I did a data reset in the past and it looks like I may have misspoken. It looks like I was asking about it last year because I needed to reset my Sense monitor but my solution was just cycling power at the breaker for the Sense monitor. Once I reset the data on my Sense monitor it did seem to fix the issues I was having and I was able to re add my smart plugs with no issues and they were recognized almost immediately so there was clearly something going on with my Sense monitor. It is just frustrating that there isn’t another option to reset your Sense monitor without loosing all the data thats been collected by it which is the whole point of having this thing. Everything else seems to have been saved when I did the data reset so why isn’t the data that has been collected also saved somewhere? What happens if my Sense monitor fails completely and I need to replace it with a new one? Does my data disappear again and I need to start over again? Wouldn’t it make sense to have the data stored on the users profile and not directly associated to the Sense monitor itself so that way if the monitor dies you simply replace it and the new monitor picks up where the broken one left off or say my monitor is having issues and I just do a factory or data reset and when I reconnect the monitor it simply picks up where it left off?

Your data doesn’t disappear in this scenario - the data would still be present in the original account. If you had to replace your Sense monitor, you would create a new account and start again on the new monitor. Since there was no data reset in this hypothetical scenario, you would still be able to download a .csv of historical data from the original account for reference.

Completely get what you’re requesting here, and I’ve brought it to the team to make sure my response accurately reflected how things are processed now. Right now, detections are tied to the monitor. I might recommend creating a Product Wishlist thread for this request so we can gauge popularity amongst users.

Well I had more issues and my power usage was reading 0W for a while and my solar was reading correctly and I wasnt sure what was going on so i did a reset again and everything was reading funky so I turned my solar off and and unplugged it from Sense and did another reset and now I am waiting for the signal check to finish before I turn my solar back on, plug it into Sense and enable solar in the settings. I’m not sure if these issues are isolated to me or if this is part of the issue that we were seeing over the last week.

Oh and I said this last year when I had to disable and reenable smart plug integration and I am gonna say it again because this part drives me crazy but defaulting control to on for the smart plugs is just annoying and I think they should be set to off and users should have to go in and turn this feature on for any plugs that they would like to control from Sense. I also hate this feature because I have over 30 devices that I have to disable and if you’re looking in the device menu and you accidently hit the on/off button on one of these devices you can accidently turn something off which I did accidently. Sorry but this is a stupid feature and I like to keep my devices automated and if I need to control them I have apps for that.

In the bug thread (and wherever bug related comments have been shared) the primary issues have been missing or gaps in data, to which we’ve advised folks seeing issues to stay tuned for an update on when/how that data will be backfilled. I’ve advised against a data reset in the past unless there’s been hardware or infrastructure changes to your home or panel for this very reason, and until the bug was completely resolved we weren’t able to nail down the culprit for your homes specific issues.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Product Wishlist forum is really the best place for this. If a bunch of other users agree, this is put onto our radar much quicker than one isolated request.

Well its still not clear if the issues have been resolved on your end or not and when I did a data reset on my end I was at least able to add smart device integration back to my Sense monitor but the more I troubleshoot on my end the more issues I keep finding. It seems that there is a lack of transparency from Sense to its customers when it comes to issues. I am trying to get my Sense monitor back online and working correctly but there seems to be something wrong with it. The only thing that I have changed is I turned off my solar system so its not producing any power and then unplugged the solar CT clamps plug at the Sense monitor so that it wouldn’t interfere with the power meter CT clamp readings which it seems it was doing. After doing this I disabled all integrations and did another data reset and then got the error below which seems weird being that my Sense is still connected (minus solar) the same exact way it was connected over the past year and a half.

I’ve mentioned this before.
https://community.sense.com/t/smart-plug-control-option/5176

I’ve posted several times about this bug leading into last week and mentioned it was still open heading into Friday, including several updates to the Status page as we continue to work on correcting the issue on our end.

Based on the initial comment thread we had, I was under the impression you were waiting for the bug to be resolved. Since the bug was surrounding API issues (which include smart plug commands for set-up), I was under the impression that you were waiting for the issue to be resolved before moving forward with a data reset. If I misunderstood what your next steps were, I apologize for the miscommunication.

The moment a separate bug related to issues with Factory and Data resets was resolved, I made sure to update that thread (and have been posting updates about the existing bug impacting gaps/missing data to relevant threads across Reddit and Facebook). If you have suggestions for ways we can be more transparent with active bugs, other than what I mentioned above, I’d be all for hearing it. Our goal here is to keep the Community informed on what’s going on. As soon as we have any updates, we’re always going to share them here first. In the meantime, we’ve requested our team update the status page every other business day (even if there’s been no resolution/update).

We’re all trying to do the same thing here, @mike_gessner, and that’s make Sense better for everyone.