Your home's overall device detection occurs over time, and devices are identified periodically. Sense will find different devices in every home, so be sure to keep an eye out for notifications about new devices, and read on to learn more about what to expect.
When you first set up a Sense account, you are invited to complete a survey of major devices in your home. It is important that you complete this survey at your earliest convenience, and it takes most people about two minutes to complete.
If you cannot finish the survey when you set up your Sense account, get back to it as promptly as possible. The information this gathers will open your account to significant information about your devices even before the Sense system starts to find each one within the traffic of your home’s electrical current.
Tip: As you add or replace devices over time, you will be able to continue to add major appliances to your device list.
After you've completed your device survey, device information will start to appear in a couple of different ways.
Historical Device Estimates
Especially early on, Sense may be able to generate a historical estimate for some of the devices you list, before it has actually seen enough data to detect them in real time. If you have notification enabled, Sense will notify you when historical estimates first become available. Most of the details of your historical estimates can be found on the Usage chart in the Dashboard, and on the Devices page.
Note: These estimates are calculated overnight for the previous day, so you’ll see information about yesterday’s usage appear today.
For these devices, you can expect the following:
- Now: Because these estimates are historical in nature, devices detected this way will not yet appear on the Now screen when running. You’ll see their current usage aggregated into the Other bubble. Similarly, there is not yet any detail on the timeline, though that will appear once the device is detected in real time.
- Dashboard (Usage feature): The Usage chart will show this device on week, month, bill, and year views. For day views on devices not yet detected in real time, the usage counts toward Other. Since these device estimates are calculated overnight for the previous day, today’s usage on all views will also be counted toward Other until new estimates are available.
- If you indicate more than one of a particular device, they will be presented as groups at this stage - you’ll know it’s a group if the device name is plural, and there will be an indication of how many devices are expected, i.e., “Fridges: 2 units." The usage estimates should represent the whole group.
Tip: To check how much energy a particular device uses, even before it is detected, you may be able to use Watt Check. See How do I use the Watt Check feature? This doesn't speed up device detection, but it offers insight while device detection is still finding a device.
- Devices: On your device list, you will see all of the devices that were added after your survey response, as well as any that have been detected since. Devices and groups that have been detected or estimated are shown with a blue icon.
- Devices with historical estimates will have limited settings and information available compared to devices detected in real time. You may delete these devices or adjust the quantity of devices in a group, and additional settings become available when the device is detected in real time.
Real Time Detection
Depending on your notification preferences, Sense will notify you when historical estimates first become available for your devices, and will notify you again when the device is detected in real time. As devices are detected, they are added to this list and devices detected in real time offer more information for you to use.
- Now: A detected device will appear as a bubble at top, if it is on.
It will also appear on the timeline so you can track on and off events below the bubble screen. You can turn this on and off per device in the device’s settings. - Dashboard: The Usage chart will include hourly details for real time devices and offer measurements of how much their use contributes to your home's usage overall. The report also allows you to consider usage for different periods of time: daily, weekly, monthly, annually, or via the bill cycle.
- Devices: Once a device is detected in real time, additional settings options such as location, make/model, and notifications become available. You’ll also see new details for the device on the details view such as a power meter and timeline for that device specifically.
- Use the Devices listing to monitor usage and also to set goals and track your success! See How do I create a goal?
Device Detection in your home takes time, and will continue indefinitely. There will likely always be some things that haven’t been detected. This is because some devices display different information and behavior than others do. For example, there is a big difference between devices that you turn on and off regularly and those that are on all the time. Many devices are compound and actually use one or more motors and one or more heat sources as they operate in different modes (you can merge them into one named device as these components are identified). And variable speeds in the same device can also add a layer of complexity. So, you will want to be alert to the progress Sense makes over the days and weeks after you set up your system.
If you work with Sense to confirm our hypotheses, to name and differentiate your home's devices, and to merge components into one named device, you will ensure accuracy and robust reporting down the road.