Sometimes devices turn on but don't appear on anywhere

[waterboysh]

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this mentioned by a couple of other users, but I can’t find the posts. I’ve got a few screenshots to help illustrate the problem I see.

Lately, Sense has been getting Stove 2 (the big eye on the stove) conflated with my dryer so I have it set to notify me when it turns on. I’ll get the notification that Stove 2 has turned on, but when I look in Now or when I look in devices, it doesn’t show as on. This means I can’t report a problem > this device is not on. Here you can see that Stove 2 turned on at 8:54 and the current time is 8:55.

Here is 3 minutes later. The current time is 8:58 and at 8:57, Sense said Stove 2 turned off. I can go to devices and open Stove 2 and it’ll say Off for 2 minutes. But if I look at the device power meter, it doesn’t show anything at all.

This only happens when the dryer is on. If we are using the larger eye on the stove, then Stove 2 will function just like I expect it to.

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This happens for other devices too. Sometimes when I turn my PS4 on (which is plugged into an HS300) Sense thinks my washing machine turned on. It’ll tell me it’s on, but there is no bubble and it’s not on in the device list. A few minutes later Sense will alert me that the washer has turned off.

Sense has a native detection for both my laser printer and my instant pot. Pretty much every time I go to print something, Sense thinks my pressure cooker turns on. I think the printer warming up the fuser must look similar to the pressure cooker. One it’s done warming up, the pressure cooker turns off and the printer turns on. But during this couple minute period that Sense thinks my pressure cooker is on, once again there is no bubble in Now and it doesn’t show as on in Devices.

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My wish list feature that could help fix this problem: Allow us to report a device as not on after the fact. I know there are always requests to let us “teach” Sense and I understand why that’s not really feasible. But it would be great if we could give the ML algorithm some feedback. Really… both ways would work. In the Now section we could press and hold on a device in the timeline and tell it “yes, this device was in fact on” or “no, this device was not on”.

[waterboysh]

I finally found another thread about this from Nov 2019 (in which I also posted in). So it seems this issue has been around in some form for a while at least.

[JustinAtSense]

Hey @waterboysh - thanks for sharing. I think I may have seen this in my home as well, going to try and replicate it today. Have you already submitted a support ticket with support@sense.com?

[waterboysh]

Just submitted. I hope “read this community forum post” is fine for a description

[pswired]

This is still a problem for me. No movement on the support case I opened.

[waterboysh]

Here’s another example I was able to capture. This time with a device the Sense detects reliably 100% of the time - my water heater. I noticed this purely by accident because I have my water heater set to not give me a notification and to not show in the timeline. So I bet this happens with other devices too.

I just happened to open the app and see a large “Other” bubble and was wondering what could possibly by using that much power.

So I decided to look in the power meter to see if anything stood out to me. Yup, it definitely looks like the water heater. My wife had just started diaper laundry, which has to be washed with hot water. We normally use cold water when running the washer.

So then I went to the device list and opened up the water heater. Sure enough, Sense just says “off” but without saying how long it’s been off for. This was at 12:56pm.

Five minutes later, I check the power meter again. It definitely looks like the water heater has turned off.

So I went back to the device list and opened the water heater again. Sense now says the water heater has been off for 2m 34s.

I didn’t think to check the device power meter while the water heater was on but Sense was showing it off, but it was either working or Sense filled it back in later because here’s what it looks like now.

A quick point: One might think a possible cause is that Sense missed the on signature, but saw the off signature, and then went back and filled the data in. This is possible, and because I didn’t have notifications set for the water heater I’ll never know. But, for my “Stove 2” that turns on when the dryer is running, I’ll get a notification that it turned on and then several minutes later get a notification that it turned off. I don’t think it’s missing the on signature.

[waterboysh]

I want to revisit this topic. I still have this issue. I had contacted support, and they said they adjusted something, but nothing really changed. When my dryer comes on, Stove 2 will turn on, then 5 - 10 minutes later it turns off, but during this period there is no bubble for it and it doesn’t show as on under devices.

This device detection seems to work 100% of the time with my stove though (it’s the larger eye). So it really leaves me with 2 options, both of which I feel are not optimal.

1. I want to be able to report issue > this device is not on when Stove 2 is triggered by the dryer. However, I can’t do that. So I could rename it to Dryer 2 and start reporting the device as not on when the Stove runs instead, since that part seems to be working. Then hope Sense will eventually find a separate device for the large eye on the stove.
2. I could just delete the device and hope that Sense later finds 2 separate devices.

My issue is not really with the “false detection”. My problem is that Sense thinks the device is on but doesn’t give me a way to tell it otherwise. I’m not really sure what the best course of action is.

[pswired]

I just asked for an update on the ticket I have open with Sense support on this issue. If you want to open a ticket and reference mine, the number is 159162.

[pswired]

I have seen this phenomenon with a few devices, but it’s most prominent with my “HVAC” device, which is a two-stage Trane central heat pump with a variable speed indoor fan. Background: this device was originally discovered last winter when it was in heat pump mode, and detection then was 100% rock-solid. Since then, we’ve switched to cooling mode. The power usage profile of this device is different in cooling mode: the fan ramps up to a different speed and at a different rate, and the refrigerant EEV behavior is causing the compressor load to be slightly different than when in heating mode. So, the device is detected less reliably, which is to be expected.

The weird thing I’m seeing is that the device bubble and on/off status indicator in the device list sometimes shows the wrong status for the device, despite sense actually properly tracking the status of the device as reported by the device timeline and the device-specific power meter display. So, the sense detection model is working properly, but the bubble display and on/off status is wrong. I’ve attached some screenshots showing this in action. I submitted a ticket for this, but they don’t seem to be getting the distinction between a weak device detection and the issue I’m describing.

Is anyone else seeing this?

[jefflayman]

Yes, I have seen a similar issue. I see it most on my Dryer, and sometimes on my Living Room AC. Often the bubble will appear if I go look at something else for a minute, but not always.

I don’t know if it is related, but your second capture says “Off for 1hr 16m” when the unit has been on for 16 minutes. I have seen this discrepancy for several months on my iPhone on various devices, but noticed recently that my iPad didn’t have this display issue. I wrote tech support, who suggested that I uninstall/reinstall the app on my iPhone. That solved the issue, but only for a day, then it was back.

[pswired]

That’s a good point. Next time I see this happening, I’ll check the web app to see if it’s showing the same behavior as my iOS app. I’m running Sense 38.0-0d909283 on iOS 14.6 on an iPhone 12 Pro.

[JustinAtSense]

Thanks for sharing your information @pswired - I’m checking in with Support today.

For others that are seeing this issue, please comment below with the:

• Sense App Version
• Device OS:
• Device Type:
• Sense Detected Devices impacted:

[pswired]

Looks like this happens in the web app also. You can see the timeline status not matching the bubble status here:

Later, the device turned off and the timeline updated:

[JustinAtSense]

I’ve added this to the bug report - we’re actively tracking this, so please report this bug to support@sense.com if you’re noticing it!

[waterboysh]

On mobile ATM so I’ll look later, but I posted about this same issue quite a while back. I still see it too. In fact, right at this moment my water heater is doing it. I’ll post pictures and find my old thread later when I can.

[waterboysh]

I found the thread I made. It was created in June 2020, and funnily enough it was because I noticed it happening with my water heater and you commented on it @pswired.

In that thread, I mentioned an even older thread. This one. Created November 2019 about the same issue. That thread was created by you as well @pswired.

Both of those older threads have screenshots, but I’ll include the ones I made tonight here as well.

Here is my water heater running, but there is no bubble for it. It’s all under the other bubble. You can see in the timeline where Sense did see it turn on.

Here is what the device page for it looked like. Notice it doesn’t say “Off for X minutes,” it just says “off”.

Here’s what the timeline and device page looked like 2 hours later. I meant to take do this closer to when it turned off but I forgot. You can see it now says “Off for 2h 11m,” and on the timeline you can see where it turned on and then off.

Sense very accurately tracks my water heater.

If it would help support, maybe @JustinAtSense can merge all the threads together into one discussion?

[Beachcomber]

[Beachcomber]

I’ll put this here as it might be related. If not, it’s another bug.

669+216 = 885, not 1,114

[JustinAtSense]

@waterboysh

If it would help support, maybe @JustinAtSense can merge all the threads together into one discussion?

Great suggestion, thanks for linking the previous thread over. I’ve added your note to the bug reporting thread.

Folks, if you’re seeing this issue please write into support@sense.com → I only have two cases reporting this issue right now. It’s hard to get a lot of eyes on this without folks actively reporting it.

[pswired]

Thanks for finding the history @waterboysh

I forgot that I’d opened a case on this previously.