What's new in v26 and Web App v7: Always On Stats

We’re happy to announce some new updates to the Always On features in both the mobile (v26) and Web (v7) apps.

This release brings several improvements to how Always On devices are shown in the Sense app.

The Always On view now contains a new “Stats” card, similar to the one in Device Detail views. It contains an estimated yearly cost of your Always On devices, the average percent of monthly usage consumed by those devices, and a new comparison widget, showing how your current Always On usage compares to the Always On load of other Sense users… You’ll notice that this is similar to what we include in the new Monthly Email Report. Further cross-user comparison is a hotly requested feature and this is the first step in that direction for the mobile and Web apps.

Additionally, there are some new features of particular interest to those with smart plugs:

Sense will now detect if a smart plug device is an Always On device or if some component of it should fall under Always On. Tthe Always On component of a smart plug device will be subsumed under the Always On bubble in the Bubble view. If a smart plug device has both an Always On mode and a mode where it uses more wattage, like a smart TV that always consumes 5W but uses 150W when On, a new device bubble will appear accounting for the additional wattage. If you tap the device bubble, it will show you the usage accounted for by the device’s Always On component.

In the Always On screen, you will see a breakdown of your Always On smart plug devices. This just applies to smart plug devices for now, but will include more connected devices in the future.

In the Devices view, you will see your Always On smart plug devices nested under Always On. If the device starts using more than just its attributed Always On usage, it will move out from under that list and occupy the space of a typical device.

With the addition of smart plugs being tracked as Always On devices, some clarification should be useful between terms like Always On, Always On component, and Idle states. In short, Always On represents the low percentile of your power consumption over the past 24-48 hour period. To calculate a smart plug device’s Always On component, Sense will look at its consumption data over the past 24 hour period (not 48) and attempt to find a low percentile baseline wattage, similar to how the core Always On value is calculated. Lastly, Idle is also smart plug specific and is calculated when a device spends a significant amount of time higher than its lowest, non-zero baseline wattage. An Idle state is not necessarily constant. You can find a more thorough breakdown of these terms here.

A quick note for smart plug users: Your Always On calculation might take a few days to change to the new format (which includes smart plug Always On devices), due to the rolling nature of firmware releases.

As always, let us know what you think in the comments!

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Would you take a screenshot of what the bubble page should look like if I have always on devices using smart plugs? Both in their regular state and when using more electricity?
I have several that are double listed. Both in always on- stats and the regular device page. It’s my understanding they should move back and forth

@samwooly1 Here is what mine looks like. I can see the always on portion of the home theater.

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Click on the power strip bubble, you should see the always on portion there.

I don’t get that bubble. I do get another strange thing. My WiFi router is an always on device and pops constantly out of the always on bubble to its own and back again.
Tried to upload a short video to show it but format is blocked.

@samwooly1 - Dumb question, but are you running the latest version of the app (v26) That icon for Always On makes me think you are not.

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I checked and I am running version 26.
No such thing as a dumb question but I’ve thrown out some dumb answers for sure.

Mine finally caught up

I suppose this reliance on smart plugs means I should ask for similar monitoring of UPSes and PDUs that offer it. There’s a richness of info in the APC and Raritan products I use for both my homelab and my AV gear.

Alternatively, please offer an API to inject device data and I’ll script up what I need.

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@RyanAtSense In general, I really like this update, or at least the idea of this update. I have a lot of smart plugs, and it is nice to not see a proliferation of bubbles for the devices that are “off” (i.e., in their idle state), and have the bubbles just appear when the devices are turned on and drawing above their “always on” value.

But I am having the following problem. When the devices on smart plugs are all off (so drawing at roughly their always on value), many of these smart-plug bubbles pop in and out, over and over (every several seconds), disappearing because they are at their always on level, and then re-appearing but showing just 1W over “Always On” (e.g., Always On: 33W, 34W).

It seems this would be alleviated by having a minimum threshold for the bubbles to appear – e.g., they should only appear when the smart plug is drawing at least a few watts above the “Always On” value. This would prevent them from oscillating on and off with these 1W deviations that may just be caused by measurement error.

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I hope everyone having this issue will respond

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Same issue here.

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I’ll pass the feedback about some sort of threshold setting along to the team.

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II like the new always on feature and how it’s supposed to work with our smart plugs. Notice “supposed to”, mine is not working very well.
I ha e a router on a dedicated smart plug that uses between 10-14 watts and in fact, always on.
This router constantly bounces from its spot in always on to its own device line or bubble. When using 10 and 11 watts, it’s in always on. Then, while it’s using 11,12,13 and 14 it will have its own line or bubble. Note how 11 watts can take it either way.
This bouncing in and out can happen many times a minute and is very Annoying in addition to making statistics inaccurate.
The second problem involve a smart plug with a small power strip plugged into it. So it has two devices, a dish network DVR and a television. The DVR uses 38 watts and is always on. The television uses 80 watts and is turned off multiple times a day.
When the TV is off the device line shows the plug is “idle” so only when it’s using 38 watts. This should place those 38 watts into always on but it doesn’t. Then when the TV turns on the plug should come out of always on and be placed on its on line on the device page. The plug gets moved down in devices like it’s off with 38 watts and moved up to the on part of the page when the television is on.
Am I thinking wrong by saying the 38 watts of always on should always be there and only move when the tv is also turned on?
All this bouncing and notifications is driving me nuts today.
You can see how the power strip is showing on and off multiple time when all that changed was using 38 watts up to about 41 watts.
And two screenshots of the actiontec router both in and out of always on
image image
image

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@samwooly1 @RyanAtSense - I think it would be advantageous to have a “toggle” option under devices setup for “This device is always on”. I also see the smart plug bubbles flipping on and off incessantly for devices which are “Always on”. Sense has a toggle option right now “Trigger” for use of devices which have an idle state, I see the need for the “Always on” option toggle for associated devices using smart plugs/strips that we can identify as always on.

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I’m having a bit of a hard time following this. Could you grab a video on your phone?

  • TV is on Idle and doesn’t get put into Always On (is it pulling 38w 24/7?)
  • When the TV turns on, what happens?

For those who’ve expressed concerns about the threshold for AO devices moving out of AO being low, we have some fixes planned for this and hope to issue soon.

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I agree with this. I’ve got a rack full of equipment on a HS300 and its bouncing all over the place LOL

The other issue I have is my “Other” basically is gone now after this update, a reboot of sense fixes it temporarily (PLEASE give us an in app reboot option!!) but after a day or so its gone again and the sum of all of the bubbles is definitely lower than the current usage :wink:

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Hi there,

I have confirmed via about that I have v26 on iOS and v7 on web, but the always on is not able to show a breakdown of my devices. How is this enabled? Do I need to do something specific?
Thanks :slight_smile:

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Hello, noticed it’s your first post. Welcome to the community @miguel
Not sure I’m understanding your question as the “always on” device calculations are done on their end. It has to do with smart plugs for me. Only smart plugs that are always on are being put into this new category.
Here is what that looks like on the device page

Hi. Thanks for the datapoint… yes, I have a ton of things that are “ON” such as cameras, plugs, wifi access points, etc… hence I am excited about this new feature. FYI, currently my always on is 600+ hence more of why I want to see what is it all going into :slight_smile: