What was on then? - Show consumption detail by the hour

Would be nice to be able to click on any of these hours/graphs and get the detail of exactly what was on in the 60 minutes and what %/wattage/cost the items used.

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Directly below it lists the % of total wattage for the time period, tapping the device shows the wattage and cost and highlights (grays out everything else) on the graph.

Without knowing your personal schedules, I would assume your thermostat is programmed to raise/lower the temperature at that time or that is when you are showering.

For more in depth insight you would go to devices, tap on the those devices where you will be provided with the device level details, Stats, Usage, Power Meter, Device timeline. From there you should be able to use all that information to determine if anything unusual is going on anything from a timer that could be reprogramed, a potential issue with or related to a device or even a family member messing with a thermostat to leaving the fridge door open. That’s another reason device alerts can come in handy.

Note the usage graph does show the hr. but the total usage, ext. cost, times on and total times on can only be broken down to the day. which is why those specific stats cannot be broken down further in the Trends usage screen. Sense sums up those specific stats at the day level as it would consume a lot of extra resources to maintain and immediately retrieve indefinite logs at the hourly or minute level for every single device for every single user. Sense needs to keep signatures indefinitely for detection purposes therefor they can readily be displayed. But not many people care to know how exactly how much power their refrigerator light bulb used and how much it cost between 2-3pm on April 6th 2018. I’m amazed at how much historical data Sense currently makes available to users unnecessary for device recognition, I can only imagine how large their data servers must be. Thankfully for us Sense found a way to achieve all this without requiring a monthly subscription. Which itself is a huge selling point and the only reason I’m here.

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@obscuredtrip respectfully, I think you missed the point of the OP. @Beachcomber has been here for a while and I would venture to say that he knows all of the information that you provided. What he’s asking for is, in my opinion, a decent request.

As was stated, these are by the time and the current “max zoomed in” time is 1 day. If while on the day view you see a spike in usage for a certain hour in the entire day, there’s no way to isolate that hour. You could go tapping through the devices to get this data. I happen to be intimately familiar with @Beachcomber’s house and he has probably a thousand monitored electrical devices (I’ve worked with him offline). So for him to tap through each one would be slightly more painful than someone who has just a few. Obviously, the question is, where do we stop… is it hours, minutes, seconds etc. Sense took the approach to stop the zoom of detail at 1 day.

I think it would be a reasonable request to zoom into 1 hour. I personally think minutes might be valuable, but I’m not sure I would go that far with it.

@Beachcomber my suggestion would be to charge the title to “Show consumption detail by the hour”.

This might not be factually correct. In data storage we don’t normally keep this data multiple times (maybe Sense does). It’s normally kept at the most detailed state. Summations are performed thereafter to represent the data in different ways but these summations aren’t normally stored as numbers, as that would be redundant in data storage. Normally, search operations are just “filters” if you will on the most detailed data (using indexes etc). It’s actually the opposite of what you allege with resource processing. It’s easier to get a more isolated number than it is to get a broader number this because the data set grows when you broaden the scope. Database architecture is complex and more than what we need to get into here, but for Sense to lookup this data, is really trivial in the grand scheme of things.

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@DevOpsTodd summed it up very well so I will not repeat again.

As a cold front arrived in Florida this past week, my AC finally stayed off for 48+ hours straight. That takes up close to 50% of my daily use.

The Always On is pretty consistent year round.

So now is my real chance to catch the energy offenders in the house.

When I see 2 hours with large spikes that make no sense, I should be able to simply click on the graph line and narrow down to that time frame, something that is not available now.

I am not asking for minute by minute views as they would not accomplish much in this quest.

But when I see a significant spike, as shown in the OP, it would be great to easily click on it and find out why. Especially as the early morning spike made no “sense”.

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I’m not disagreeing it might be a useful feature. Wasn’t aware he could have a 1,000 monitored devices. I’d guess that’s a record as many of us probably don’t even have that many in our homes. In his case going through all of them individually in Sense or at least the ones with high consumption would be impractical.

I can’t remember where, but I did read it was due to how Sense aggregates data or at least that portion thereof as was believed to the case some time ago.

With so many devices I’m quite surprised your always on is that high. Your situation is surely unique.
With with such a large spike during those single hrs. One would imagine it would be attributable to a single device or a small combination rather then many smaller devices turning on for no apparent reason. Normally I would suggest tapping on the devices you see using the highest percent of daily usage to see if one of them used more those hours and you could still do that. But in your unique situation that may not work.

I’ve always wanted to be able to group devices in Sense, weather it be components of a single device ie: HVAC, devices of a certain type ie lights, or a room ie bedroom. Primarily to cut down on Bubble clutter as like many I’ve never been a fan of merging. While not currently possible in Sense itself, it could be done by exporting externally. While time consuming and a PITA to set up potentially creating multiple sortable groupings may be of more benefit to your situation at this time and would allow you to determine if a group of devices rather than a single device was the culprit.
Again I’m not opposed to your suggestion of breaking things down further within Sense. Simply pointing out why it may not be practical for them to do it and offering my (less than ideal) suggestions based off what there is to work with.

Aggregation of data for AI purposes could be what you’re thinking about. That’s definitely done and totally necessary, but that’s not reflected to the end user in the form of graphs.

I’m going to attempt to get more information for you on this from the Sense team, but here’s a little more information that helps me make an “educated guess”.

  • If you go into your electricity information and you change your rate from .13 (or whatever it is) to .93 and then immediately go back to the device you’ll see that there’s an immediate change in the amount that you supposedly paid. Instead of keeping a running total of amount spent, this is a very simplistic form of querying data and outputting a simple result. Sense could, theoretically, perform an operation that would adjust all historical data every time a value is modified, but this would be extremely taxing on the db.

  • Running totals have their place, a bank for example might keep a running total of accounts as a database entry. In this case however transactions for a single account might occur a few times in a day, whereas Sense would have to update those running totals each time data is received for every device at every second.

It could also be that Sense is using “jobs” to mass calculate values and store them, possibly calculating a daily total at midnight, for example. Again, I think it’s doubtful.

Either way, I will report back when/if I get more information regarding this. I think it would be educational for all of us!

@DevOpsTodd is exaggerating.

I MIGHT have around 50 right now.

He has that many Hues lights alone iirc.

And my Always On is High because I use several Enviracare Air Cleaners in multiple rooms as well as the Air Handler using at least 413 watts 30 minutes of the hour as i have the fan on a minimum of 30 minutes per hour. I do not think less than 13 cents an hour is that much in the grand scheme of things.

As for clumping, I do that as can be seen IT Closet as well as Energy and Environmental.


And my mystery spikes were the Water Heater. Late shower I forgot about.

Ok maybe I was a little high … but you have like 50 ecobee sensors alone! … I know you have to have more than 50.

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14 Ecobee Sensor and not happy with them, lol

9 Ecowitt Sensors

I only included devices that use energy in that less than 50.

Possibly. Sense really is in a class of it’s own so anything is possible. You knowledge does explain a lot and in no way am I disagreeing. Will be interesting to see if you are able to find anything out.

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C’mon let me exaggerate some!

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This is mine
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Not incorporated into Sense are another dozen or so other smart plugs and switches I’m slowly converting.
In addition I have about 2 dozen Zigbee door and motion sensors constantly giving me issues.

Glad to hear you were able to figure it out and it’s not a result of any issue.

You’ve got me beat.


I’m actually quite surprised it’s that low. When I look at your HA it just looks like a thousand. Maybe it’s the way you have the data displayed.

My total “connected devices” in my house is at 638 between ZigBee, Z wave, Hue, Sense and Wifi devices. I feel sorry for whoever gets this house after me.

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Big contributor to that number are my three HS300’s. Two are used for my salt water tanks. The ability to individually set timers, lights, pump, etc… Combined with the ability to turn off pumps by voice when feeding or doing maintenance. Not to mention notifications of a device failure like a heater sticking on were well worth the $75 or so I paid for all 3. Between Prime day, discounts, coupons and other sales I couldn’t refuse. Integrating with Sense was an added bonus. From an energy standpoint alone I wouldn’t have bothered as most of those devices only use a few W. The 3rd one is used in my office on devices that would likely never be detected natively but consume a decent amount of power.
I have KP125’s on my freshwater tanks, TV’s, portable ice maker, engine block heater, etc…
I have a CT on my pool filter, the other on my shop lights, was originally going to use it on my 30a TT outlet but now I keep my 5th wheel at a private campground.
Most of my natively detected devices are the big stuff, furnace fan, stove burners, dehumidifiers, fridges, freezers, sump pump and the like.

Not long ago my always on was over 1000w, currently it’s 358w. I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made identifying usage. Still need to figure out better ways to actually reduce overall usage. I defiantly see weather related usage patterns with all my heaters.
I find most of my unexplained increases are usually a result of a buffering error, aka memory failure, aka forgetting I was using my air compressor, welder some other tool or large draw device during that time.

All my door & motions sensors are Zigbee most of them are Sonoff (which explains a lot). They randomly and constantly go offline or fail to report with no sense of rhyme or reason. I have a suspicion it may be interference from an older WIFI aquarium light that broadcasts it’s own SSID with no way to disable. I really need to figure it out as I use the sensors to keep tabs on my mother’s Alzhimers.

The BSR X-10 System was a very early attempt at Home Automation in the 80s. Units were also sold at Radio Shack.

Radio Shack cleared out their stock around 1987-1988 and put the light switches on sale for perhaps $9 or less. I went to every Radio Shack and purchased every one I could find, ending up with about 30 of them in virtually every light switch.

Sold the house several years later and even offered to put the original back in. The buyers didn’t understand them but said leave everything as is.

Took the BSR X-10 control units with me as well as the wireless controller and telephone remote, so the switches simply operated as normal local switches.

In the 3 buyers since, they probably were never actually used as anything but local light switches once I left. New buyer was confused as is was the alarm system alone.

Suspect many were replaced with older dumber dimming switches anyway since then as there was no way to activate dimming without the control units.

I suspect your house might end up the same way after you are gone, although your Inovellis will operate as dimmers locally.

I had a couple of the X10 “outlet modules” back then, think we won them at a (now politically incorrect term used at the time) auction. I tried to use them on Christmas lights, they melted and nearly started the house on fire.
I know someone who still uses a rigged X10 command console at a local bar.

I never used the outlets. They were low Amperage iirc.

Really was focused on lighting.

You might be the king of connected devices :crown:

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@Beachcomber I was actually thinking of something similar. Not sure if this would make a nice addition to your suggestion:

I’d love to be able to pick a spot on the power meter and “See Details” of what the bubbles would have looked like (in any visual format) at that time.

The reason I’d like to do that is often times the “quietest” period of time in my house is 2-5am. I often see around 300W in this timeframe, would love to see if all of that was tagged to “Always On” or if there’s a device even within that. (My Always On is 320W usually). And then there’s some things that cycle overnight and would like to see if those are detected devices or not at all.

So not a “aggregation” but more a Point-in-time view of what was on.

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