| National Grid has already begun to replace older electric meters with Sense-enabled smart meters in New York, and early access has been rolled out to a limited number of homes. Hold off on logging in until general availability is announced. |
The Sense Home app requires a strong and stable Wi-Fi connection between your Sense-enabled smart meter and your router or mesh-network access point. Homes with sufficient bandwidth, minimum interference, and a Wi-Fi access point close to the Sense-enabled electric meter are likely to connect successfully.
- When setting up the Sense Home app, you will be asked to choose your network from a list of those available. If your network is not on the list provided, type in its name. If typing the name fails, signal strength may be too low. (See below)
- Your network needs to use a password for security. If you are unsure of your password, look on your router. If you cannot find it there, you may need to contact your Internet service provider (ISP) to change the password before you can connect Sense to your Wi-Fi.
- Your meter will be located outside of your home, so consider how close your meter is to the Wi-Fi router inside your home. Ideally, your meter and your router will be no more than 20 feet away from each other for best signal strength. If the connection fails due to low signal strength at the meter, you can do two things to improve this:
- move the router inside your home so it is closer to the meter, and/or
- install a Wi-Fi access point (also called a node or a repeater) to get within 20 feet
- Wi-Fi routers have two bands: the 2.4GHz band prioritizes distance and the 5GHz band prioritizes speed. Sense can only work on the 2.4GHz band. They also include options on how your data is encrypted, and Sense requires you to point your router to the WPA2 encryption standard. You'll find more details on how to manage your router settings at What Wi-Fi router settings does Sense need?
NOTE: Presently, Sense-enabled smart meters are incompatible with homes that have solar panels installed. We hope to add that support in the future. In the meantime, if you wish to track your solar production and energy use, you can purchase a Sense Solar Home Energy Monitor here and have a professional electrician install it in your electrical panel.