Smart plugs and device detection

Ok. That makes sense regarding the differences in the units used for measurement. But the reinforcement learning portion should be possible and useful. The biggest user-benefit I’m looking for is the ability to buy a few plugs, use them to train the system with a user supplied label for a period of time ( a month? ) and then unplug the smart plug, connect the device back to the wall and re-implement the plug with the next unknown device in the line.

There was to be a balance between not having any ability too label our devices ( device plugged directly into the wall ) and having to buy a smart plug for every device we want to have detected properly.

As I went through my smart home journey, I’ve got smart plugs from various different vendors, Vocolinc, Koogeek, iDevices, iHome, Ikea, Aqara and more… I understand integrations are always a work in progress, but I’m not loving the idea that I would have to buy new Wemo or TPLink plugs and replace the ones I’ve already got.

Just hoping for something more. :slight_smile:

Christopher

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Can’t add to the Detection FAQ anymore, so I wanted to bring this suggestion back here. I’d be more than willing to vote with my wallet if Sense released a smartplug that operated as a remote unit who’s job was to report/detect only the specific device that was plugged into it. This should allow the users to label the plugged in device accurately, and also give the high speed sampling rate that Sense is using at the electrical panel to be able to capture the devices specific electrical personality and match it with the label.

Additional controls could also be a tag to mark the device as active/non-active ( just a user button that creates a tag at a specific time point in the data stream ) to help Sense understand when an always-on device like a TV/DVR etc… is really active vs. Sitting there passively sucking electricity.

Most importantly, The device would also have to be able to be moved around after a month or so and reusable throughout the house. The actual time it would need to learn a specific device would be, of course, based on the sense algorithm and might require more or less time depending on the device.

I would be more than happy to pay a premium for a smartplug that allowed sense to learn more and gave me the ability to help teach the system.

Thoughts?

Chris

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This is what smart plugs are already doing for us, though the sampling rate isn’t as high. But you’re right, at this point it cannot be moved off of that device and still remember that detection. As noted in the linked posts above, that’s something we hope to implement in the future after we pull more data via these plugs.

But, already they’re allowing Sense to learn more and are giving you the ability to teach the system.The timescale is just not immediate.

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AND, since many of the detect ion problems are with 220v devices, a module that can be wired into a 220v circuit (perhaps permanently) would be of huge value. There don’t seem to be any such devices on the market yet, but Sense, perhaps partnering with TPlink (who already has 220v capability, unfortunately packaged for EU plugs) could certainly benefit from such a product.

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Another thing I thought could be in sense future for 240 devices is just like other manufacturers have done, with CT’s for each load. Each 240 breaker that is. Could they create an interface or maybe through the Schneider partnership have made, an interface that wirelessly connects to home WiFi but is reading several 240 loads from separate CT’s for each? The servers then could do the work to integrate the information sent from the sense monitor to send back to our viewers.

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Hey @RyanAtSense,

Totally appreciate the response. If the plug doesn’t allow me to train sense and then move it around, it’s just not valuable to me. The implications being that I would have to buy a smart plug for a ton of devices in my house that I either don’t want or would have to replace smart plugs I already own without ecosystem compatibility. Not a compelling argument for me.

Hoping Sense comes up with a way to move plugs around soon. :slight_smile:

Christopher

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I think Ryan has already part of your question - there is a future that includes what you are asking for. I do want to point out that building/selling a device with the same sampling resolution as the Sense monitor puts it into a very different cost category than the HS110 (200$ vs 15$).

The strategy I have taken with smartplugs is to buy enough for the interesting 120V plugin devices in my house that haven’t been detected, plus one roamer that I use as an enhanced Kill-A-Watt for investigating.

  • interesting means that they are not constant draw like virtually all of my networking gear.
  • and I have put HS110s on two identified devices as well, my furnaces, since the Hs110 reveals additional significant components beyond the detected blower.
  • I actually wasted a HS300 on my networking gear (modem, router, access point, main switch, cable amps) since all of those are essentially constant. Just as helpful to put them all on power strip with an HS110.
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Sorry if you are just talking to Ryan Chris but can I share a thought?
I’m using integrated plugs and here is what I think.
I take the plug and use it for a device so I can use it with Sense to monitor its use. While it’s connected to sense, it’s a detection only because of the integration.
Let’s say I move the plug (I do move them). I f I were to NOT reset everything and plugged that receptacle that was connected into a pump now into a toaster then sense would see the toaster now as the pump. Each time the toaster cane on it would be detected as the pump and send that information to the servers. That’s how smart plugs are in fact “training” Sense.
So here is what I do if moving:
I first go to Sense and disable integration. Then to Kasa and alexa and remove from both.
I reset the plug and setup in Kasa first but when it tries to reuse settings, I do t allow and make sure to use a new name (this is important). Open alexa, rediscover. Then back to Sense and turn Integration back on.
Doing this you will not lose the history from the first device (pump on my case) when moving to toaster. This will keep any bad data from going to servers.
How long or how many cycles? I don’t know. But I’d say the server store, keep and use as little or as many as are sent.
Sense does not retain the pump detection is the only thing but I already learned what I wanted to know

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I think your approach saves the history of each short-term monitored Smartplug device, so you can go back to it over time as well and remind yourself of the waveforms ?

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hey @kevin1

Appreciate you chiming in. I understand Ryan’s response and the limitations of the current state of the integration as well as the future intent. I just want to be clear that in my case the solution doesn’t work as-is. Whether there are enough other people like me out there to justify the business case to look at bringing this type of product to market is a whole different question. :slight_smile:

I’m actually fine with paying a premium for a sense plug that would give the resolution of the sense monitor as long as it’s able to move around. This would actually be a product I would throw money at today.

Christopher

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I actually thought about modding a Sense device for use with on my big 240V draws, but it became unworkable in my mind just from an adapter and UL safety perspective.

BTW - I also have a few Koogeeks and Eve Energies smartplugs around my house from earlier attempts at energy assessment, but neither meet the technical requirements for integration (one doesn’t provide power data and the other doesn’t interface via WiFi)

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I completely understand and would love to see a product like you describe with the capability to be moved around.
What I’m doing now is what I think is closest to it. Let’s say I leave it plugged into a specific device for hundreds of cycles. That’s all going to servers. Will that be enough information for when someone has the identical device that it will be detected? Probably not but I can’t help but think that it could and will contribute to helping with future detections for that device. Maybe 6-9 months down the road my device is detected natively by Sense. Was the small contribution made by my smart plug a part of that?
I think you probably think a lot like I do and expected more out of the box based on the website. Marketing is just a little ahead of themselves and that’s just my firm opinion.
I’ve scaled back my expectations and my experience has grown and gotten exponentially better.
I think we are in the “CHASM” @kevin1 lays out
Search “crossing the chasm” you’ll enjoy I think

Hey @samwooly1

Not a private conversation at all and really appreciate you chiming in! Seems like a pretty difficult process to go through every time, although it might sound worse than it actually is.

Curious: when you say you already learned what you wanted to learn, what was that? I’m still a new user and trying to learn how people who have been doing this longer are using sense in the “real world”.

I had a goal in my head where Sense was going to be able to help me understand my whole house electrical usage patterns and I’m starting to think that goal might have been to high. Not unhappy with the purchase at all! Just trying to align my expectations with reality. :slight_smile:

Christopher

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I’m referring to getting detailed information from the individual device and how it was used and what electricity it consumes during use. Let’s say I plug it into a crock pot. I leave for a week and use the lot 3 times that week. I can then calculate use and figure out what the crockpot costs to cook all day for a meal. I go further than that and cook the same meal in the oven. Calculate that and see which is more economical.
Doesn’t help sense, just feeds my OCD

I think your spot on with this and this is where Sense has been of most benefit to me. While I like device detection and machine learning, it’s the big picture that really matters.
An example would be my power meter and I’ll show you what it looked like at the end of January into the first week of February. If you notice how high the use was right and the end of January, sky high! When I zoomed and looked it was my heat strips running. The temperatures were only a few degrees cooler than the first week of February. I took this and changed settings for my heat pump and see the difference in my use after January 31st when I made the change?


I’d be really nervous on that mod as well. :slight_smile: Great respect for all things electrical.

Yeah, there’s some differences in even the Koogeek. The Koogeek power strip does have the power data, but I think the lower end plugs don’t.

Would it help if someone compiled a list of wifi plugs that had the power data, model numbers, and wifi capabilities? I’m happy to start putting that together based on the devices I have in my setup as a starting point. Might help to guide the integration piece a bit. It would also be great if we could somehow open source the data model for the integration piece to some degree.

If we were somehow able to boiler plate the code required to pull power state and draw out of the plugs and normalize it, I’m pretty sure there are a few people around who might be willing to contribute the effort for a better total solution.

My coding skills are limited to python, but I’m not bad at reverse engineering REST APIs. :slight_smile:

Christopher

That’s very cool. Totally understand how that can be useful, I’m just not sure that in my list of life priorities that I would make that the chosen way to spend my time.

Hopefully that was a polite way of saying “I totally respect and understand why you did it, just not something I can spend the time on right now”. :slight_smile:

Definitely a task for the future though… I tend to get competitive and can easily see myself going after that last couple of Kilowatts to get my house down to a goal level.

Christopher

No offense taken Chris. It sounds like I spend more time on it than I actually do but it does still consume some time. I’ve always been pretty productive and have lots of irons in the fire.

LOL Awesome. Yeah, I’ve got projects like this around Air Quality that I’m heads down on right now. As I slowly get those problems solved, I’m pretty sure that starting down the electrical optimization might be might next project.

Time me, Productivity is more about being organized to optimize the output based on the time input. Sounds like you’ve got that down pretty solidly.

Really looking forward to sharing the learning here with this community!

Christopher

Three thoughts:

  • It would be useful to put together a list of WiFi power measuring smartplugs under the the Wishlist category. There are already a number of requests there, though a number of the requested smartplugs don’t meet the current requirements. Centralizing might allow better side-by-side polling, plus focus people on just ones that fit the current criteria for integration.
  • Having seen the rollout of smartplugs, plus the introduction of an additional one, the HS300, I believe that the integration of a smartplug is more challenging than you suspect. It took quite a while to get the HS300 right, even though Sense had been interfacing to the HS110 for a months (presumably 99% the same protocol). I don’t think it would be easy to “boilerplate” the code since the control code lives inside the Sense monitor, and probably has lots of additional constraints (code footprint, latency, data management for bundling in to packets sent to the Sense mothership, performance/realtime tasking deadlines, etc.)
  • If I were Sense, I would be trying to expand my integrations to cover additional blindspots and points of leverage. My thought is that smart thermostats, home automation systems, and connected EV chargers might offer greater bang for the R&D headcount than adding more smartplugs, unless there is one more smartplug that is very compelling, especially when the existing smartplugs are already fairly widespread and inexpensive. In your case, perhaps a link to your current home automation system might be a better priority ? Just asking.
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