Get some Sense... [sense monitoring solution]

[SabrToothSqrl]

The original 40w lights were a sunk cost. Already exist, function just fine.

Not counting fuel costs, or time, spent $3.00 on bulbs.
Bulbs that now consume 12w vs. 80w. (total).

In my state, electric is about 12c kWh so... how long would you have to run 12w vs 80w to make up $3.00?

Difference = .068 kw = $0.008160 / hr

367 hours to make the difference. roughly 2 years or more of fridge use.

Not as bad as I thought.. but $1.50/year? the ROI is better if you skip eating out for lunch 1 day every 2-3 years.

 

[HankLloydRight]

I see, instead you can tuck the relay into the existing wiring space and use some flexible conduit for the 120V control line?

Yes, in fact there's already a junction box for the heater that goes from romex from the panel to conduit to the pump, and I can put the relay in there. The smart switch for the circ pump is right below that.

Yikes. My whole utility bill for a 4600 Sq ft house is less 75% of that.

Our house is 5,300 s.f. and I hope to get the electric bill down to $200-$250 before summer when the A/C units (yes, there are two) kick in.

 

[DarkMatter]

The original 40w lights were a sunk cost. Already exist, function just fine.

Not counting fuel costs, or time, spent $3.00 on bulbs.
Bulbs that now consume 12w vs. 80w. (total).

In my state, electric is about 12c kWh so... how long would you have to run 12w vs 80w to make up $3.00?

Difference = .068 kw = $0.008160 / hr

367 hours to make the difference. roughly 2 years or more of fridge use.

Not as bad as I thought.. but $1.50/year? the ROI is better if you skip eating out for lunch 1 day every 2-3 years.

There's something to be said for the 'never touch it again' factor as well. I have had a total of three LED bulbs fail since 2008. It's like forgetting that light bulbs failing is even a thing.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Just a quick followup.

I didn't get our bill down to 200-250 like I wanted, it's still in the 350 range. Still down 150/month from before I put the aux hot water tank relay in (which is working great, BTW). I had everything pretty much smoothed out.

But then the wife decided it was time to turn the A/C on. Can you tell where that happened?

Yes, with the A/C being on, as well as the aux hot water tank, the house was pulling over 10kW for a while.

Here's what a typical day looks like now:

And that's without any car charging.

Can't imagine what our electric bill will look like next month.

 

[tga]

So has anyone actually got this silly thing to work well? It feels like it's still in beta. It forgets devices it already found, finds new devices that are just duplicates of things it already found, etc.

It used to track car charging well (after spending a month plus to find the car). Now it sometimes sees the car turn on, sometimes not. When it does, it eventually "forgets" that it's the car and re-classifies the load in the middle of a charging session as "Unknown"

 

[mongo]

So has anyone actually got this silly thing to work well? It feels like it's still in beta. It forgets devices it already found, finds new devices that are just duplicates of things it already found, etc.

It used to track car charging well (after spending a month plus to find the car). Now it sometimes sees the car turn on, sometimes not. When it does, it eventually "forgets" that it's the car and re-classifies the load in the middle of a charging session as "Unknown"

That could be due to the charging rate changing as the pack SOC rises... (not that it isn't annoying).

 

[animorph]

Mine seems like it misses some turn-on transitions so that it says an A/C is off when it's really on. Only had it on for a couple of weeks at this point. I assume that if two things turn on simultaneously it has a harder time recognizing what's going on. It's just deducing what's happening from a careful look at total power draw so there will be some inaccuracies.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

I stopped obsessively checking mine months ago. Honestly, if it wasn't so much work, I'd probably remove the thing.
Neat toy, but houses use power. What you gonna do? Not run the AC? lol.

 

[israndy]

OK, late to join the group. I tried to put this in before I got the Tesla, but my panel has busbars instead of wires carrying the electricity from the meter to the breakers. Couldn't figure out how to install it w/o potentially breaking it.

Finally, someone was selling a used one on eBay so I tried again. Managed to force the CT pickups around the bars and have been in the learning stage for almost two weeks. Up to 16 devices.

The software seems to have advanced quite a bit from what you guys described back in the day. It no longer says %learning like it seems to have for you guys. It gives me something to obsess about now that I have grown to know the Tesla pretty well.

I especially like how it's in the same vein as Tesla, learns a bit more with each new customer, making everyone's experience just a bit better. I expect this to be similar to the expectations Elon has put on AutoPilot, with exponential progress as the data set expands.

One of my favorite things it picked up was after it used data from Sense to discover there was a hot tub out there it flagged the first 1700 watts of power as belonging to the tub. Apparently, a previous tub at another customer's site used that much. And all last week that's what it showed, yet the Other bubble would grow in sync with the Hot Tub bubble when it was heating. Then yesterday morning at 1 AM it finally decided that the whole 3kW was being used by the tub. That's w/o an update coming out like the Tesla would need to learn things. Very nice. Now that I can quantify the power used, I can work on saving money by turning things off with timers when I don't need them like room heaters or the hot tub.

I am hoping to make use of the Sense product to measure the solar I am generating and compare that to the energy the house is using and only turn on my Tesla charging and Hot Tub when there is LOTS of spare power. But I am only now shopping for panels...

-Randy

 

[Nifty-Stuff]

Glad I found this thread!

I loved the idea of a Sense monitor the first time I heard about it a few years ago... but wasn't convinced it was ready for prime-time use.

Now that it's been a few years, I'm curious how people are liking it?

If I get one, I'd want it with the solar monitor addon as well.

Is this thing also reliably tracking tesla's?

 

[ivolodin]

Mine recognized Tesla at some point, but never tracked it properly, and lost it since then. I know that for some people it works well, but for me, it fails to identify mostly anything I would care about (mini-splits, appliances, etc.). All it recognized are some random things like water heater, stove, trash compactor, microwave, etc.

 

[israndy]

Sense is really cool in that you can get a great idea of what is going on. I actually have an old iPhone 5 that I leave plugged in running the app and when things change you get movement on the display. It is true that many things are not recognized, but most of the things that come on and off are. The solar is really cool as it is super responsive vs. the reporting from the actual solar system (I have Enphase).

There are things that it gets confused by. It will say that it recognizes a device and then you will see it's shown as on but you know it turned off hours ago. Or it will not know something is on that it knows, so the total power for that device is less than it actually used. Fortunately, there are ways to help the model out, but it's a learning process. If you expect something that will magically wake up and know your house, it's not there yet.

I am hoping it will get better quickly but unlike Tesla Autopilot it seems they use the AI to make keys that trigger on/off events for the devices. This means, like the Teslas, if the software for Tesla charging changes, it breaks the key. Much more brittle than it should be.

 

[erik_k]

I had CURB in my last house. It has CTs for the mains and then additional CT for your chosen sub circuits/branch circuits.
I don’t need or care to track low amp devices like TVs or computers but wanted to know how much my old all electric water heater was using /month and compare it to a planned upgrade to a heat pump hybrid water heater. With the branch circuit CTs I could track specifically the water heater circuits or HVAC, etc.
Curb - Power Your Life. Smarter.

Moved since then and haven’t yet gotten around to installing my CURB at the new house. Probably will do so soon when I add a new sub panel in preparation for my pending Used P85D delivery.

 

[HankLloydRight]

I put Sense in a few months ago.. I was really looking forward to it. But after several months, I'm kinda 'meh' on it. First, it takes A LONG time to detect most of your devices/appliances. But it still gets things really wrong. Like it says I have four A/C units, when I really only have two. It thinks I have four fridges, but I only have two. It says I have three furnaces, but again, only two. And I charge my Model S at 110v/12amps (UMC with normal wall outlet), and it has NEVER detected that (gets lumped into "other").

It was fun to watch the first month or so, but now I barely look at it. And I have lots of issues with the UI, but I won't get into those now.

If I knew all this going in, I probably wouldn't have spent the $300 on it.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Thread bump!

In the last few pages of this thread, you all helped me figure out how to install a smart switch in-line with the aux-water heater we have. It's been working splendidly these last few years. Thanks.

But now we're selling our house, and the buyer's home inspector dinged my install of a smart-switch and relay as "non standard" and "likely installed by an amateur and not a licensed electrician" (both of which are true). See the photos below of my install.

The first problem was he said the junction boxes need covers, that's no problem, I can fix that easily.

But how can I fix this so it appears to be installed by a professional? The relay is just "hanging" out in the open suspended by the stiff wires. In the last photo, I noticed that the size of the relay fits exactly into the cutout for a switch. Maybe that helps, maybe it's a coincidence.

So anyone with professional electrician experience, can you please make some simple suggestions how I can mount the relay according to standards? Thanks.

 

[israndy]

Easy way out is just to disable it, remove your mods, and let them hire someone if they want it.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Easy way out is just to disable it, remove your mods, and let them hire someone if they want it.

I thought about that, but I think it's a pretty good system that will save a lot of money. They are a growing family of 4 (soon to be 5) and are cost conscious. Also, I kinda forgot exactly what I did, so I'm not sure how to undo it.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Use a large (or a couple) PVC boxes to contain all the wiring and mount the relay to it.
something like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Electri...Boxes-Brackets/8-x-8-x-4/N-5yc1vZbohnZ1z198li

Thanks. Including the smart switch, or just the relay and the associated wiring?

 

[brkaus]

I'd just remove it. Sure, they might benefit, but if the relay goes out they will be cussing you with no clue on how to fix it.

Or get a smart switch that is rated for the current, can fit in a regular box, and would make everyone happy. That is, if they exist.

 

[DarkMatter]

It's going to be a headache to make that setup look like it was installed by a professional. Were it me, I would drop in an Intermatic ET8415CR for about $220, wire both the circuits through it, then write FED FROM TWO CIRCUITS on the front of the box. It will look professional and not take much time to install or set up.