With Smart Plugs, what becomes of Always On

@frankwin.hooglander,
Take a look at the your web app Power Meter for the past 48 hours. You should be able to gauge your core home “Aways On” from that. I have found that my Sense environment does subtract smartplug Always On’s from the house Always On, but that smartplug Always On are:

  • Not the same as Idle some of time
  • dropouts and Off (vs. Idle) make smartplug Always On lower, often 0

I have also found a few big power users that I had never identified previously - My 1 yo garage door openers use 9W each, even when not opening, just listening for the click of a remote control.

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6 hrs Later… Looks cool. Can you tell:

  • Summer from winter - Hint: AC in orange
  • When Sense stopped identifying our Model S, when I put in the new extension cable fix. Hint: Tesla in hot pink.
  • I have solar - negative energy in purple

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Have you worked with Support on your issues with Always On. Those smart plugs should be getting reflected in your Always On figure. I’ll also mention this to the engineering team in the meantime.

Thanks. I did look at my power meter and the lowest value I found in there over the past 48 hours or so was 248W which I guess is still a lot higher then I would expect since before smart plugs I was between 160W - 180W (at least according to Sense). I guess each smart plug does use some power itself as well.

I have not[quote=“RyanAtSense, post:66, topic:3927, full:true”]
Have you worked with Support on your issues with Always On. Those smart plugs should be getting reflected in your Always On figure. I’ll also mention this to the engineering team in the meantime.
[/quote]

I have not, but I can send them a ticket I guess.

I did an experiment a while back using @duanetiemann 's utility to read HS110’s data. I saw about 2 W difference between two when stacked back to back on my record pump.

https://community.sense.com/t/mobile-beta-smart-plugs-themes-v23/3758/194

Suspect an HS300 would use slightly more.

Remember that Sense also rejiggered the Always On calculation at some point in time. A move from absolute min during a 24 hour period to a 1% statistical min during the past 48 hours could cause a big change in Always On if you have a low point in daily usage that is very short.

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My always on went from 153 yesterday to 215 today

I’m gonna post this here though I think I have also posted a similar graph Data Analysis at some point in time. Based on my experience, the Sense Always On computation has moved around a bit over time. I identified 7 different “domains” since Aug 2017 based on my history, but some of the drastic changes may have been due to other factors, though outside of smart plugs, I haven’t drastically changed many things in my household to reduce Always On.

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Just checked my always on and now it says 123 W

Also would like to point out that over the past week I’ve been playing around with the app and even looking at it on my computer to see whats been running and my wife keeps asking me what i am doing and i think its helping because she goes to bed after i do and she usually leaves a bunch of things on and I’ve noticed over the past week shes been turning more and more things off each day. I call that winning

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I agree with rethinking what the ultimate goal of Always On is. To me, it’s a pseudo device representing all devices of a recognized constant load, but of unknown unidentifiable device/devices, if that makes any sense. I see some thinking of it as a device category. Sense doesn’t use categories, right? With these smart plugs maybe that can be added as device tag or something.

I think Always On should stay as it is. Because once something is identified then it should get its own bubble like normal, and drop off of the Always On. In a perfect world if everything could be identified would you still expect to have an Always On.

Others have mentioned Always On being a good low water mark. I don’t know about that. In addition to Always On you normally have other stuff running at the same time. So your total low point will be Always On + sum of other devices but, that’s only at a single point in time. I’d like to see low power averaged based on current filters Days, Week, Month, etc.

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Everyone keeps talking about Always On being a Low Water Mark, so why is it not on the Meter View? Just a dashed line across the bottom saying Nothing (typ.) Gets Below Here

I do like the ideas of changing the shape so people don’t conflate Always On with What is Actively On. I saw the mockup above where the Alway On’s were pie charted. Personally, I would prefer if a bubble w/i a bubble view were made representing identified vs unidentified Always On

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I wonder if sense being willing to actually “think out loud” with the active forum members might be better received than waiting until you have it figured out…even though many here gripe and beg for new and better I would think that we are your most avid supporters and want to help whenever possible.

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@HORSEL80,
I think about 6 months ago, Sense posted more specifics on the Always On and Idle calculations in support.sense.com. The tricky thing is that all three involve realtime statistical functions (1% bin, clusters). I don’t think that the definitions have changed in a while, though I think Sense does occasionally tweak the explanation for better clarity. I notice that this definition was last updated yesterday at 11:44AM. Here’s the link the explanations:

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I will caveat to say that I am not a very active member…I joined in the spring and read a lot of the forum and then am only coming back now because: 1. I had an unknown power surge signature come up with an AirBnB guest I have under one of my 3 Senses (3 different houses) and 2. I will be adding solar soon and so have a renewed interest in educating myself on what to expect as I add that major component.

Yes, thanx. I found that article a couple hours after it was posted I think.

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@kevin1 hooked you up with some recent updates on that front, but I’m going to also shoot you a PM related to this.

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@HORSEL80,
One more interesting bit… I do try to watch my Always On over time to see if the calculation changes. It’s hard to separate out three things:

  • The calculation itself
  • Changes in usage patterns in the house
  • Data loss issues - lost smartplug and main monitor data has a big influence on Always On

I started up with a new Sense monitor in April 2019 and have been charting my hourly Always On (black) vs. the number of smart plugs reporting data for the hour (red) vs. the hourly (residual) error between my utility meter and Sense data (green). Still trying to sort out my history. There was a period from April into May when I was getting very little data - Sense helped me fix. For me things have been fairly stable since mid-July, though I’m still trying to account for the upward increase from about 300W to 500W.

Most of the negative Always On time periods look like this, where the Sense monitor had it brains scrambled a bit and required rebooting…

And guess what, the biggest residuals (differences between Sense and my utility) look similar:

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I too started around the same time with one of my units. The other two started in February. I have yet to export any data but as far as Always On goes it does fluctuate quite a bit for the short term rentals based on occupancy of various numbers and types of people and pets for various time lengths (so far a little more than a month at most with an average of less than a week), as expected. In the house where I live I am so far between 100 & 200, seemingly average about 150 although right NOW it’s at 190.

When I add the solar I’m sure I will find it another learning curve for all the new info analysis.

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