I’m not sure this is the right place for this comment, but here goes. @ruthdouglas notes above that a certain device detection is “lousy” and another is “mostly” accurate. Many users have made similar comments in other posts. I’ll tell my own story next. Does anyone know if it would help Sense to get feedback from users in a more systematic way? If so, Sense could implement a field on each device page where users can [optionally] provide a rating, right in the app!
In my own experience, I have seen a wide range of quality. I’ll give two examples. My clothes dryer definition is currently great. It picks up the heating elements on both legs of the 220 device and it picks up the motor/fan which is only on one leg and this is all in a single definition. This did not come easily, however. I’ve had at least three previous device definitions for the clothes dryer, and none of them checked all these boxes. I could not be happier now with this device and would give it 5 out of 5 stars.
The second example is the clothes washer. Sense currently has native definitions for three different aspects of the machine. I call the first Washer, the second Agitator, and the third Spin. Since this is a machine, it washes every load of laundry the same way (unless I change settings, which I rarely do). I would therefore expect to see a pattern such as one load = 0.014 kWh Washer + 0.047 kWh Agitator + 0.144 kWh Spin. I have looked for such pattern, and it isn’t there. Instead, I see usage showing up under Other and a huge scatter in results from these three devices. I would give each of these three devices 2 out of 5 stars, since at least they are trying.
What might Sense do with such ratings? For starters, if it is 5 of 5, do nothing. I know their engine is constantly tweaking behind the scenes, but I would hate for some tweak to break a good thing. If the rating is 1 or 2 stars, they could perform a “what if” analysis. They could ask their server, “If the poorly-rated device were deleted by the user, would you have a suggested re-detection?” If the answer is yes, they could offer to swap in the better definition. This would help in the case of my clothes washer, which I have been reluctant to delete because having some detection is better than nothing.