@samwooly1, yep I got home last night and walked around the house. The answer is teenagers! We’ve got some old florescent fixtures in the basement…left on. That was almost 200 watts of my 300 increase right there. I wish sense would find them as lights but I’m pretty sure my always on will drop with the fan and florescent bulbs turned off. As of leaving the house this morning, my always on is now larger than our current draw…so should see that number come down over the next 24 hours.
We need an alert which sends an electric shock into teenagers when they don’t turn items off! Can sense provide the hardware for that?
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@ptmoore
We have the same teenager problem. They think switches are wall decorations I guess.
I had 6 fluorescent tube lights in my garage up until a few weeks ago. These were almost always on and would draw around 240 watts together. I purchased LED “direct wire” replacements and installed them instead. They were very easy to install and use only 18 watts each along with having a burnout life if 22 years. The bulbs were onto $38 for the set. It’s surprising how much brighter they are. I had also changed out about 100 of them at my wife’s business last year and her electric bill dropped about $70 a month from this one change.
Good luck but sounds like you’ll see your numbers come back down by this evening
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I wouldn’t put too much stock in burnout time. I have had over a dozen LEDs fail. These include Flouro replacements and regular bulbs. None were used excessively. All were quality brand names.
My house is all LED except in the kitchen and laundry. Only the stove, range hood and dryer use traditional bulbs. There may be one left in the fridge.
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I’ve also experienced the early burnout times. Most others I’ve purchased were either 5 or 7 year and last 3 or 5. These are Cree driven and I’ve had better luck out of that style but I’m sure your right and I won’t be seeing 22 years. At least they are affordable now. I switched most of mine several years back when the price point was much higher.
Usage History: I’m within the lower 10% in both Average Watts and Always On , compared to Sense users, within the state of Ohio .
Standard Smart Home: Ranch with full basement (3k sqft living space), built April 2016, 3 bedroom, 3 baths
Primary Occupants: 2-Adults (Husband & non-working Spouse)
- Jan 2019 - ( Average 692 watts) ( Always On 163 watts)
- Feb 2019 - ( Average 521 watts) ( Always On 101 watts)
- Mar 2019 - ( Average 471 watts) ( Always On 95 watts)
- Apr 2019 - ( Average 397 watts) ( Always On 98 watts)
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@invoice
That is spectacular! I wish I could get my household to live so frugally!
I promise the “key” is the strategic placement/use of LED lighting, smart-plugs, and outlets! They totally eradicate the presence of “Vampire Power”, which has direct impact to “Always On” values.
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But the smart plugs themselves (and I assume the outlets) use about ~2 W each. So if you start using a lot, let’s say 20 of them, they’ll consume 40 W all the time and become a new vampire. I am limiting how many smart plugs and devices I add to my home to the ones I really need, partially for that reason.
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Can’t believe I never noticed this thread until now. This moment I’m running 49W, I’ve gone lower, but I can’t prove it at the moment. Except to go through “Always On” usage history and divide 1.1 kWh by 24 and get 45.833 
but I’m not sure if that figure is acceptable for this contest.
So I could go lower with sacrifice, but like the author, meh. that takes the fun out of it.
For me its more difficult to understand huge Always On numbers. lol. 600W always on??? how is that possible? lol.
reading down the thread, I agree with those who want to see months worth of usage. I’ll have to post again in a month because last month my data was interrupted by an issue with my internet connection for a couple days.
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Do you ha e email reports enabled in the App?
If so, check your email and see if it ended up in junk
I have the email report but it isn’t going to be accurate because my internet was down a couple days last month.
Always On statistics are a total failure in my opinion. I know for a fact that mine are not as high as it shows me most of the time. I proved it with testing in my home several times now.
And the explanations I’ve been given by Sense don’t completely align with why this happens.
At this point I’d like to be able to remove Always On completely
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I want it removed from the calculations. Another idea would be something like minimum usage yesterday or something like that. what was the lowest reported wattage yesterday. and it not be a part of the calculation (excluding power outtages).
sure there will be times when that would be inaccurate because of playing around with the breakers and so forth. but most of don’t fool around like that on a daily basis. I think Always On, minimum usage, etc. have a usefulness. but I don’t think their true usefulness is being taken advantage of.
and the one useful purpose I can think of for it, is to alert us that something is off. Rather than reporting a number and saying this is your always on usage, and therefore your other usage is negative, it ought to just alert us and say something like:
“Hey Gramps! I’ve noticed you’re using more power today (or yesterday) than usual. Have you made any changes to your usage habits or forgot to shut something off?”
because back in January or February (and I posted my story to get a chance at free smart plugs ) I had forgotten to turn off the attic fan and 3 days later I opened the app and was astonished that I was at 150-200W, and began hunting for the hog.
and if the usage drops significantly, how about a notification for that too?
“Hey Gramps! You’re using less power than usual. Have you made any changes or you might want to go check the breaker box and make sure nothings flipped?”
or that everything is running like it should. A notification to warn us that, if we haven’t made deliberate changes, we should look into our usage more closely and then maybe check around the house and yard to make sure that nothing is wrong. This is the only real application I can think of. And it should not be used in calculating the “Other” bubble.
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Always on:
Dec: 228
Jan: 261
Feb: 170
March 125
I slipped backwards on the always on a little but solar was more than usage for first time! Of our 950 kwh 402 was the Tesla, love that showing up correctly now!
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Usage History: I’m within the lower 10% of energy utilization in both Average Watts and Always On, compared to Sense users, within the state of Ohio .
Standard Smart Home: Ranch with full basement (3k sqft living space), built April 2016, 3 bedroom, 3 baths. Gas appliances (Furnace, Water Heater, Oven, Dryer)
Primary Occupants: 2-Adults (Husband & non-working Spouse)
Sense Installation Date: January 2, 2018
- Jan 2019 - (Average 692 watts) (Always On 163 watts)
- Feb 2019 - (Average 521 watts) (Always On 101 watts)
- Mar 2019 - (Average 471 watts) (Always On 95 watts)
- Apr 2019 - (Average 397 watts) (Always On 98 watts)
- May 2019 - (Average 382 watts) (Always On 100 watts)
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Your Always On of 25 watts is something for me to reach for… Congratulations on a job well-done!!
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Thank you! Let me know when you reach it!
Usage History: I’m within the lower 10% in both Average Watts and Always On , compared to Sense users, within the state of Ohio .
Standard Smart Home: Ranch with full basement (3k sqft living space), built April 2016, 3 bedroom, 3 baths. Gas appliances (Furnace, Water Heater, Oven, Dryer)
Primary Occupants: 2-Adults (Husband & non-working Spouse)
Sense Installation Date: January 2, 2018
- Jan 2019 - ( Average 692 watts) ( Always On 163 watts)
- Feb 2019 - ( Average 521 watts) ( Always On 101 watts)
- Mar 2019 - ( Average 471 watts) ( Always On 95 watts)
- Apr 2019 - ( Average 397 watts) ( Always On 98 watts)
- May 2019 - ( Average 382 watts) ( Always On 100 watts)
- Jun 2019 - ( Average 387 watts) ( Always On 97 watts)
3 Likes
