It’s been three weeks that we installed a Sense power meter at home. As a real-time, whole-home power meter, it works well. However, it doesn’t deliver on its promises of identifying devices based on their electric signature. The only device the sense found is our garage door opener. That’s all! So, I can forget using the sense as a sensor for home automation. There is no way one can use it in such a scenario.
As the next steps, I will see if I can manually have devices recognized. But I have serious doubts. The most raging experience is to watch the power meter capturing very specific signatures that I could assign to the right device. For example, when I switch off my workstation, the six displays exhibit a very specific and constant power consumption signal. Unfortunately, there are no options I can find to highlight a time interval and assign it to a device. I can only hope that sense’s analysts and data miners will find the nose in the middle of the face. At this point, I would not recommend a friend to buy a sense.
