Get some Sense... [sense monitoring solution]

[evp]

I've had mine installed for about a month. It has never recognized the Tesla charger, even enough to separate it out as an "Unknown Device". It's figured out the furnace. It identified the heat pump as an unknown device, I told it what it was but after a while it seems to have forgotten. I've never see it identifying light bulbs, not even the ones in the fridge.

I installed the solar panel probes. It took a while to get the software to configure itself for them. Two potential problems there -- 1) my cell phone might have been dropping off the WiFi connection in the back yard when standing in front of the breaker box; 2) you have to cycle the inverter in and out of circuit during the setup, my inverter takes five minutes to come back on line, it was timing out the initialization.

Their tech support feedback is good -- I've had a few dialogs with them about installation and device recognition issues. It still doesn't recognize more than about 30% of the things I care about: TVs, computers, chargers, printers, ...

 

[rfmurphy81]

I set up Neurio back in February or so. It's pretty similar to Sense and some of the other products being mentioned. I love being able to turn things on and off to see how much they are affecting the power usage. It's been helpful seeing how big a difference in power there is between using AC or the whole house fan, for example.

Like some of the others, it shows you a "always on" amount and you have the ability to track application usage. Unlike Sense, you can actually train Neurio for each application/device. Unfortunately, it isn't the greatest at capturing every instance of a trained application turning on or off. It's also a newer product so I anticipate it could get better with future releases.

I had originally purchased it so I could very easily see how many kWh was going into my Tesla but I wasn't able to get what I wanted. I eventually went with TeslaLog.com then TeslaFi.com which, while not perfect, provides a much better idea of kWh used during each charge session (plus lots of data under the hood for drives, charges, idles and sleeping). If anyone knows of a better way to track charge sessions via the outlet via a slick UI, I'd love to hear what others use but that may be better for a separate topic.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

I will email them and see if they can work with me to get my S detected. Adjusting the amps though I'm sure will throw it off. Mine drops from 40-30 if anything happens.

I'm still at 11 devices found. It says my heat pump is 2,000 watts, but that's the heat pump. What about the blower that moves the air that runs with it?

I also want a learning option. Like turn it on / off x times while in learn mode.

 

[ThisIsTrue]

I told my wife about this device, she goes "o that's cool, you should get it". She's such an enabler.

I have a good wife too -- it's why I can be here.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

I'm up to 14 detected devices today. FWIW. Also, thanks to Bambi hitting me, the car is not in my possession, and the quote is over $6k in damage... good times.

I miss my car :'( *sniff *sniffle

 

[evp]

.... It says my heat pump is 2,000 watts, but that's the heat pump. What about the blower that moves the air that runs with it?

I managed to get mine to detect the furnace and heat pump as two separate entities. It described the heat pump as a 4000 watt "unknown", so I told it what it was.

I also want a learning option. Like turn it on / off x times while in learn mode.

Me too. But perhaps it needs to build up a spectrum history before it can distinguish the learned device.

 

[HankLloydRight]

How do these devices do the actual detection of all these appliances ?

 

[brkaus]

How do these devices do the actual detection of all these appliances ?

One that I read about, I believe "Sense", uses signal processing to identify signatures of the devices. I believe they say similar to Shazam or other tools that can identify music by listening to music.

Each device type will have a different waveform in its current ramp, overshoot, usage, etc. With math they could even figure out light bulbs, assuming there were different wattages, either due to bulb size, manufacturing differences, or number of bulbs on a circuit.

The main problem I see is many devices may look different, for example lights on dimmers or variable speed HVAC compressors. And then the secondary problem of overlapping signals.

 

[DarkMatter]

The dimmers will have really distinctive signatures however. I used to listen to shortwave radio and could tell you which dimmer was on in the house regardless of the level they were set at. Given the sampling frequencies they talk about it might be basically the same as tuning in radio rather than looking at the low frequency behavior.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

When I told them it was showing my 2 Garage Door Openers (same model, same breaker) as one... they said ... "yep".

So, it's not all that smart...

I also have 3 'unnamed heat' devices that I can't figure out...

Unnamed motor 5... no idea (possible septic pump)

unnamed device 3 & 4 - no idea.

 

[mspohr]

How do these devices do the actual detection of all these appliances ?

I don't really know how they do it but it seems that many devices use a set amount of power so they could easily monitor changes in power use. For instance, if the TV uses 100 watts, they just look for a 100 watt change in power. It gets difficult when devices don't use a constant amount of power or have low power use that gets lost in the noise.
I have a whole house power meter and was thinking of implementing the same thing in software. (It's a "dumb" meter which doesn't attempt to analyze power use). However, just looking at the daily use graph, I can easily spot the hot tub spikes (about 3000 watts), my Tesla charging (10,000 watt spikes), the electric heat in the apartment (4000 watts), and a few other large energy users. The "base load" of about 400 watts is also useful in helping to look for those small things which are on all the time.
I try to eliminate wasteful energy use but I'm not too concerned about total energy use since I have solar panels. I just do an annual assessment of total use and total production and add solar panels as necessary. (The new garage apartment is designed to be all electric with no fossil fuel use. I'll see how the use is this spring. I'll probably need to add a few more panels to compensate for its use.)

 

[DarkMatter]

I still suspect it actually looks at the noise signature of the device. Almost everything nowadays uses a switching power supply or switching controls. Those will make all sorts of noise on the power line at frequencies that are much higher than the AC supply but low enough to reasonably sample and analyze. It's basically a radio receiver hooked to the power line watching for both changes in load and changes in noise.

 

[HankLloydRight]

I still suspect it actually looks at the noise signature of the device. Almost everything nowadays uses a switching power supply or switching controls. Those will make all sorts of noise on the power line at frequencies that are much higher than the AC supply but low enough to reasonably sample and analyze. It's basically a radio receiver hooked to the power line watching for both changes in load and changes in noise.

But with dozens of devices on the line, doesn't that all together end up sounding like the equivalent of "white noise "?

With them all going at once, I don't see how they can id individual devices so well.

 

[Max*]

[SPECULATION]

I agree with @DarkMatter. It has to look at the noise signature, there is no way it can just utilize the power to figure out which device is which.

I'd also guess it has some small predefined list of noise signatures, it can use those to get the first few devices going, then it starts to learn the patterns of new devices you have on your circuit.


@HankLloydRight - how familiar are you with signal processing? I'm going to simplify this to the easiest to understand level, I fully understand that the systems and noise characteristics are much more complicated.

So imagine a sine wave. You can see it in the time domain very easily, right?

Now imagine 10 different frequency sine waves in the time domain. It looks like white noise? Not quite yet.

Let's imagine 100 slightly different frequency sine waves, does that look like white noise? It probably does.

But when I take those same 100 different frequency sine waves and drop them into the frequency domain (Fourier transform), I get an individual spike at each corresponding frequency - so they decorelate very easily. The noise will be more or less additive.

So I can start looking for my list of known signatures in either the time or frequency domain, start taking one out at a time that I know. Then I can start seeing "well looky here, this noise source has signature X and it appears isolated from sources Y and Z, let's learn it, then remove it" now I'm left with Y and Z. Now let's imagine it's not a sine wave, but looking at it as if it's a bandpass signal, something that has some bandwidth to it. If the two frequencies are too close together, and their bandwidths are too wide, than I can see problems separating them out.

[/SPECULATION]*

*I could be 100% wrong, but this is how I'd approach the problem
**If I had MATLAB on this machine, I'd show you a couple examples of what I'm talking about, but instead you'll just have to Google

 

[DarkMatter]

But with dozens of devices on the line, doesn't that all together end up sounding like the equivalent of "white noise "?

With them all going at once, I don't see how they can id individual devices so well.

It's really no different from tuning in radio stations. If you listened to every one on the band at once it would be noise. Instead you tune in one at a time. This system effectively listens to each of the radio stations all at once, separately. That's my guess anyway, simplified.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

Still at 14 devices. Tesla still at the body shop. Not overly filled with joy at the $250 purchase yet... I have 2 TVs we use DAILY and it still hasn't found one.

 

[brkaus]

I appreciate the updates!

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

As of this AM, 15 devices detected. Unnamed Motor #6. I think it's my HVAC fan.

Also, last night I was able to name 2 devices. Unnamed Device #4 was the Dishwasher. Unnamed Heat #3 was DishWasher Heater.

So, looks like it's still learning things. Took me FOREVER to figure out the dishwasher lol. it would show up late, like when I was in bed...

Turns out the wife sets it to run before we go to bed. lol. DOH.

I wonder if unnamed heat #2 is my propane furnace igniter.

Thankfully I have an ecobee 3, and can shut off the HVAC from my phone and see if UnNamed Motor #6 goes away. thus proving it's the HVAC fan lol. #Nerdgasm.

Unnamed Motor #6 did not go away after shutting off HVAC system.

Wonder now if it's my Heat Pump Water Heater, or propane water heater fan... no that wouldn't be 500 watts.

and now it's just gone off. ugh. detective work is fun...

well, i just told the HVAC to run the fan, and it's back! 513 watts average.

I know you guys all love my play by play lol.

 

[tga]

Also, last night I was able to name 2 devices. Unnamed Device #4 was the Dishwasher. Unnamed Heat #3 was DishWasher Heater.

You can rename "Unnamed #X" to something useful, like "Dishwasher" right?

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

You can rename "Unnamed #X" to something useful, like "Dishwasher" right?

Yep.