Sense Home Energy Monitor

Software is as important or, in many cases, more important than the hardware it works with. This app has obviously gotten a good amount of attention from the developers which is why I chose to buy Sense in the first place to remotely monitor my energy usage in real time. It looks and feels like a quality iPhone app and they even have a web-based app for the desktop. Some things like calculating amps need to be added. Right now you can just see watts and volts which I can use to do the math on my own to figure out the amps but the app really should be doing that for me. Also, electricity rates for time of use need to be added since I presume most people who buy Sense do it because they probably are in such rate plans. In the first 24 hours Sense identified my electric oven and my basement refrigerator pretty reliably. I like that the app can work with IFTTT which increases its usefulness. Just like I am a Tesla Model 3 owner being a guinea pig for Tesla’s self-driving AI learning, you kind of are doing the same for Sense to learn from the “community” of users to identify things. Like my Tesla, it already performs solidly but patience is key here because it gets better as time goes on.

I have had sense for a while now and this is my 3rd house with sense. When we moved in I had $570 electric bill. But sense helped my find problems I fixed. For example my pool pump variable speed motor was misconfigured. (2 pool guys never noticed it) sense never detected my pool motor but I can see it turn on with my schedule taking 2800W 12 hours a day. Now it takes 380W. It doesn't make financial sense to run solar pool heating I could not do this match without sense. My kitchen lights took 1300W now they don't. My landscaping lights took 2000w now they dont and there is still money to be made as I or sense have not identified a lots of load yet. I don't like to waste resources. I love sense it's fun and I frequently find my self checking what is going on. I was sceptical of the price tag but I would pay even more for it now that I had it for so long.

Flip a light switch, turn on a space heater, or microwave some food and instantly watch the effect it has on your energy usage. The energy usage awareness that Sense provides is amazing. I’ve never been more convinced that I need to replace all of those old incandescent bulbs with more energy efficient varieties. I’ve only had Sense for about a week and it’s already discovered six devices. For instance, I know that my garage door consumes 400 Watts and runs about 11 seconds. I also know that when I’m not home, my house consistently consumes between 200 and 400 Watts, not counting devices that turn on at regular intervals. With Sense, I’ll be able to isolate the devices that consume the most power and manage them more efficiently, which will ultimately reduce my energy bill. I haven’t done the ROI math yet, but Sense will definitely pay for itself.

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The problem is it feels like they have somewhat defective hardware or something else majorly flawed because the sense monitor will just go off-line and stay off-line for days at a time and you get no notifications from anything telling you there's a problem, And I've even reached out to the company to tell them about this issue and how to rectify it and it seems like they simply do not care. I’ve had i've had to reset the networking on this thing multiple times in the last couple of months alone just to keep it semi operational. If the point of this thing is to be able to monitor remotely it sure does not give me a peace of mind that I could stick it somewhere I don't have physical access as you can't expect it to just automatically work all the time, as it should.

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The premise behind Sense is intriguing: “Sense... identifies unique signatures in the power use of individual devices within your home.” My experience, however, has been quite different. A local electrician charged me $364(!) to install the Sense monitor which, after weeks of being online, has identified a scant TWO devices.. the AC and Refrigerator. The installation along with the $262 Sense monitor puts me at a cash outlay of a whopping $626. The benefit? I can watch a graph go up and down when electricity usage goes up and down in my household. From reading the app description and marketing, one gets the impression one can isolate and label certain devices however that is not the case. Lastly, our home has two panels therefor to get the entire “picture” I must add an additional monitor plus install, which would bring my cost up over $1,200. The app and product are misrepresented, in my opinion.