There are a few different types of UPS. Some of them provide battery back-up in the event of power outage, others will provide power/restrict power to prevent “brown-outs”. If you have the latter, I think it could mask some of the signature, but the items behind the UPS would still read the same outside the UPS and should be identified (I believe). For the most part, when the device asks for power, the main panel provides it, and the UPS acts as a middle man to regulate spikes. I would expect them to identify correctly (if things like TVs and Entertainment systems have been detected).
Most inexpensive consumer ones are “standby” so they only intervene when there’s a power issue (over/under, noise, total loss). With these types, the load is still pulling power directly from the panel so they show up without much interference. Other more advanced/expensive types provide clean power to the loads 100% of the time and therefore, the UPS itself is what appears to Sense, masking any loads connected to it.
It has yet to be seen how much of a load’s true signature makes it through a non-standby UPS.
I have 3 APC Smart-UPS units (the ones that provide clean power to the loads at all times). So will sense treat these as Always On devices, or Unknown? The loads connected to them varies based on what is turned on (TVs, Computers, etc).
It would be nice if sense could identify them as UPS1, UPS2, etc.
I have 3 APC SMT750. In my media room, I have a power conditioner in front of the UPS.
Sense detected a heating pad of mine, and when I plug it into the UPS, or power conditioner it shows it detected and on.
I think the issue right now is there are no models yet for tvs, avrs, amplifiers, etc.
A few people I think have said their PC of power supply has been identified.
Living Room: APC SMART-UPS 700 (SU700NET) / Panamax M5100-EX
Basement: APC SMART-UPS 2200 (SMT2200R2X106)
The office UPS has my main gaming rig on it (Skylake 6700K, dual 980Tis, Seasonic SnowSilent 1050W PSU) that is always on, a second computer that I bring online for doing media work, and a Samsung UN48JS9000 that I use as a monitor. Other than that, I got misc phone and camera chargers hooked up to the UPS as well. The gaming rig will go from a few hundred watts at idle to over 1000W when gaming.
The living room UPS has a HTPC and an nVidia shield hooked up to it. The Panamax power conditioner has my TV (LG 84UB9800) and AVR (Denon AVR-X6200W) connected to it.
Basement / server room UPS has a lot of servers and network equipment connected to it, as well as an Onkyo pre-amp and a projector in the theater room.
Here’s a pic: (the amps pull way too much power to be connected to the UPS, they they are all on separate power strips (on dedicated 20A circuits).
Some servers run 24/7 and pull various loads depending on what its doing. Another server (consisting of 3 chassis’) only come on-line once a week to do a data sync against the production server.
So far, all of this equipment behind all 3 UPSs shows up as either ALWAYS ON or UNKNOWN.
In January I used a total of 2,544 kWh, and 46% was UNKNOWN and 30% was ALWAYS ON. So for January, I used 1,933 kWh that I can’t correlate to specific devices.
Some of my media equipment list:
| Sony XBR-65HX950 | Yamaha RX-A2010 | Yamaha RX-V990 | Panamax M5300-PM | APC SMT750 UPS | APC NMC2 9630 | Sony BDP-S790 | Roku 3 | Apple TV 3rd Gen | Xfinity X1 DVR | JBL E80 - mains | Boston VR10 - center | JBL SP8II - L&R surround, surround back, L&R front presence | JBL PB12 Sub x 4 | Harmony Elite | Netgear GS108 |
Sorry to go a bit OT, but yes, that door opens up into another room where I have full access to the back of the racks.
Here’s the core network stuff. I have dual fiber Internet connections coming into the house and a 48 core switch with a 10G connection to dedicated 10G switch for my servers and workstations.
And here are the servers (I have just under 300TB between primary and backup at this point). You can also see the amps for the HTs in this shot. I had to go from 2 20A circuits to 3 to keep from blowing breakers when “partying” lol.
And the back side. I need to get this cleaned up one of these days, especially my fiber strands.
Actually, each of my Internet connections are only 50/10 although capable of 1000/1000. I have been pushing the provider to offer the GigE rate at residential rates, but no luck so far. Storage is primarily for multimedia and video editing.
The racks are in the basement where it stays cool all year. I only run 2 chassis 24/7 and they contain efficient WD Red drives. They are also set to spin down when not in use. When the backup chassis’ come on for the weekly backup, the back room temp does go up about 5 degrees or so, but it has never gotten more than 75 in there, even during the summer.
Yes, the 2 3kW UPSs have been retired. One failed and the other is still operational, but they were not very efficient and my single current gen 2.2kW is able to run everything with about 40% capacity to spare.
On a different note, and one that is actually On Topic, my “Always On” dropped to 5w overnight and has been holding steady all morning. Of course my “Unknown” shot up by the missing amount.
Just found this old(er) thread. I’ve verified that my primary UPS (online double-conversion) completely masks everything behind it and acts as a constant load, which is as exected. My second UPS is in the basement near my ISP termination and is powering the CPE device itself and is power filtering a couple other small items (small flat-screen, a treadmill, etc.). A third is AC input and DC output and provides power to the fiber termination device on the outside of the home (provided by my ISP). I’ve had NONE of the UPSs or elements behind them detected/identified, unless I’m missing an “unknown” device that isn’t coming up on the live ticker when I test things.
