We have a vacation home that seemed to have unexplained super high electricity bills. I purchased the Sense Monitor to try to understand it. I'm not super handy dandy and a little terrified working around electricity, but I was able to install it. The directions and videos they have are excellent. You want to make sure you have an electrical outlet nearby to power it. I didn't have any open breakers for the probe power to hang off, so I had to pick up a $15 one at the hardware store. Easier than I thought to do. It's in a fringe wifi area of the house but must have a strong radio on 2.4ghz because it's always has a solid connection. The hardest thing once it's installed is being patient for it to discover devices. You can see the overall consumption right away, which is fascinating as you see it going up and down during the day. After a day or two, a device was discovered, and as time went on, more and more appeared. It keeps learning. Even over a year later, it will occasionally pop up something newly discovered. Ours has found all the big players like the hot tub and refrigerator and lots of random things like the garage door opener, the OLED television, instant-hot faucet, etc. Not sure about some of the negative reviews in here. The thing is doing something pretty amazing with AI. It's like someone complaining that their dog can only beat them 2 out of 5 times in chess. It's a fantastic application of artificial intelligence that uses big data and crowdsourcing to identify very subtle patterns in your electrical system and identify them with surprising accuracy. The app on the iPhone is well done and fun to scroll through. You forget about it for weeks at a time, but it's continuously learning and occasionally finding new things. It is very cool, and there isn't anything like it that is as well polished. If you are looking for instant gratification, maybe this isn't the product for you. Nothing will be. But if you are playing the long game and want to understand your home electrical needs intimately, this thing is fantastic.

I have had a Sense for over 4 years now and I still enjoy it very much. I have used it to reduce overall energy consumption in my home by helping raise awareness of "Always On". More on Always On in a moment. My one warning - its not a "Buyer Beware", but more "Buyer be aware". Sense's ability to live up to its marketing hype with device detection is affected by many variables. Some homes have good results. Others don't. I've had reliable detections that work great for a while, and then stop working when the seasons change. Another thing to keep in mind. We tend to think of appliances in their whole. "The Fridge". "The Washer". Sense uses Machine learning algorithms to detect devices. Notice I said devices, not appliances. Your Fridge is actually a whole bunch of different parts that do different things at different times. Sense may detect your "Fridge" but it has actually only detected the compressor. It may not detect the defroster, or the ice maker. Or it may detect those things, but not necessarily as "Fridge". There are tools to allow you to merge detected devices. So if it finds "Fridge" and then it finds "Light" and you know that "Light" is actually the Fridge Light, you can merge them together so it all gets tracked together. This leads me to the next item. Sense doesn't always know what its detected. It knows it found something, and it can generally put a category to it (Motor, Heating Device, Light etc..) but the leg work on finding out which motor, or which light may be on you. Sometimes this is really easy. You turn on your bathroom vanity lights and see "Light" turn on in Sense, and you know and can then rename "Light" to "Bathroom Vanity". Other times, its harder to track down, especially when the device detected is a part of an appliance. This is where the active community forums comes in. Sense's Machine Learning is good, but at times, a human is better. Frequently people will post the graphic of the device that was detected, and other community members can chime in with suggestions. "I have a Garbage Disposal that has a waveform like that. Do you have a Garbage Disposal?" While I say a human eye is sometimes better, this is another item to mention. Training Sense is NOT something you can do. People always ask "can I train it". The short answer is no. Sense's ML system will do its work and find devices on its own. There is no training mode. Turning something on and off a bunch of times to try to "help" Sense see it is not always useful. Now, back to Always On. While my device detection has been so so, the Always On feature is what has really saved me the most money. After running Sense for about 48 hours, it will come up with an Always On number. This is basically the "low water" mark for electric usage in your home. At any given point in time, you are always using around xxx Watts. If you have an always on of 100w, using the average US rate of electric of 13.28c/kWh, that is $9.70/month or $116/year on your electric bill. While Sense cannot help you identify the Always On devices, just the awareness of the always on is enough to help you start making changes (if you want) to your home. Seeing my always on power of 600w (~$700/year) made me start looking for things that didn't turn off. I had a fan in my basement that ran 24/7 that I had never thought about. Now that fan is on a timer and only runs 12 hours a day. My TV stereo system which was always on is now on a power switch. Savings of 15w of Always On power. And the list can go on. Without too much effort, and more importantly, without impacting the comfort of the home, I have cut that always on number down to 300w. A last benefit of Always On. Once you learn your homes baseline, if that always on changes significantly in one direction or another, it can help to notify you that something is amiss. Always on goes down? Maybe a failed pool recirculating pump. Always On goes up a lot? Someone left the fan in the guest bedroom on. And so on. So all in all, I highly recommend a Sense. Whether it detects many of your home devices, or you just use it as a live instant power meter, it can bring savings and knowledge to your electric consumption in your home.

Original Review 4-4-2018 ( Several Updates below original review): Cool device and very accurate at detecting overall energy usage but individual device detection is hit & miss at best. I have had it for 3 months and it helps me monitor my overall home electricity usage in real time. It does an ok job detecting some appliances but a poor job detecting others (more on that below). The Good: -It is 99.5% accurate for what my utility company is measuring and billing me for, so it is very accurate -Detects amperage and voltage on each 120V leg (hidden in the app menu; go to: Settings->My Home -> Sense Monitor), which is great when you need to see if one leg of your panel has more usage or voltage issues. -Does data collection about once a second - Can quickly identify resistance loads (space heater, toaster, etc) and induction motors (older furnaces, older pool pumps, exhaust fans) within a week or so if used regularly. Most of these items were identified correctly but dont always get detected between cycles -Devices with single speed compressors take a little longer to identify but eventually get identified correctly (fridges, traditional AC unit, dehumidifier) The Bad: -Install is not for the average homeowner (but not much can be done about that from the Manufacturer's prospective). Having a pro install the component will be around $100 but there is not very good documentation to give a pro for install. The manufacturer has no real documentation meant for professional electricians (no electrical diagrams or requirements), so a pro who is not familiar with the product may struggle to get it wired into the panel quickly without going to the support website or calling technical support. -For those with a panel with no room to add a new 2 pole breaker, your electrician will have to make room by adding at least 2 tandem breakers (at an additional cost) -Wifi antenna extension cable needs to be longer. Installing the sense inside a metal electrical panel is dooming the device to have a poor wifi signal and the short extension cable for the wifi antenna is not very long, which made it a challenge to find a way to get the antenna mounted outside my flush mounted panel - Device discoveries are usually "guesses" that require the user to verify it but many of the guesses were not accurate for me. The guesses have become more wild over time (ex. a 10 watt load had a 88% chance of being a clothes dryer even though my clothes dryer wasnt on at all). -Device will use a decent amount of network bandwidth, especially when it is first started because it is "phoning home" to help identify usage patterns. (for those who have metered internet, especially Satellite Internet or those who use cellular data as the only means for internet). -Will not detect variable speed motors (new pool pumps, modern HVAC equipment, HE washing machines) - Will not detect lights on dimmers -Struggles to find computers (I have a high performance desktop PC that stays on 24/7 and it has not been found in 3 months despite using the same amount of energy. My home office equipment in particular uses about 160KWH/month (but I know that thanks to the Kill-A-Watt, not the Sense monitor). Suggestions for the Manufacturer: -Create a device similar to the Kill-A-Watt that pairs with the Sense monitor to quickly "train" sense on some of the most common appliances like computers, toasters, etc. This would greatly speed up the device discovery process and eliminate the guesswork for the user. I would love to walk around the house in a matter of hours and train the Sense monitor to detect most of my most commonly used objects. This would eliminate the months long process of guesswork involved. - Create a "training mode" that essentially lets a homeowner turn things on one at a time to help quickly (and more accurately) identify the most commonly used appliances and lights. Information provided to the homeowner will be much more accurate after the device is trained. - Partner with a wifi extender company or offer one that easily extend a home's wifi to the sense device. Most electrical panels are located outside of the living space of the home (building exterior, garages, or basements). Most wifi equipment is not going to be close to these locations and I would imagine that it would be needed often. My device in the garage is on the fringe of my wifi (50% signal strength) but my house is only 2000sqft with the wifi centrally located in the house. If my house was any bigger, I doubt the sense device would be able to stay connected to my wifi reliably. - Technical documentation in PDF format for electricians. The website is great but an electrician needs a set of technical instructions that can be printed out by the homeowner. Also define whether it is ok to connect to a breaker that is designed to accept 2 conductors per circuit (like the Square D breakers). -Web interface from a computer is incomplete. The web interface for Sense does not have the power meter function available, forcing the user to use the phone app. This is a great meter but I would not install it in a customer's home to help break down their usage by category. It is very cool to see usage realtime and what it does when you turn things on and off. I also think this device would be fantastic for someone wanting to get an idea of their home's peak load so a backup generator could be properly sized for a home. I do not think the appliance identification is ready for prime time because most of the "suggestions" were wrong. My house is fairly high tech with modern appliances (variable speed pool pump & Mitsubishi variable speed HVAC system) and the Sense device has not been able to identify any of them because their power usage constantly varies. I expected more accuracy of detected devices for a $300 product plus the $200 I had to pay an electrician to put this in. I have a very expensive device that tells me how much total electricity my house uses each day (my power company lets me see the same reports on their website). Update: 12-10-2018: So my original review still stands (read that first) but here is an addendum. More good: -Web interface now has live power usage, which is great to view in a web interface. - They now let you setup your billing cycle so you can view your billing cycle usage each month (as of this review, this could only be viewed from the phone/tablet app). - Usage alerts - I can setup alerts to inform me if monthly usage is trending above a certain threshold. Ex. my first 1000KWH is dirt cheap but everything after that is more expensive. I usually use less than 1000KWH except in the Summer. Sense will alert me if things are trending towards going over my 1000KWH limit that I setup. I usually will get alerts fairly early in the billing cycle to help make sure I try to reduce my usage. This has allowed me to reduce my electricity bill by staying under 1000KWH for 7 months of the year so far (a 1000KWH usage bill is only $65 total) The Bad - -Things have not gotten any more accurate. In fact, the only accurate appliances that get identified on their own are: AC condenser (16 year old single speed outdoor unit), refrigerator, portable dehumidifier & mini fridge. I do have a generic 500 watt resistance (heat) load that I eventually created because the app sees it whenever I run one of the two small burners on my stove or my radiator space heater in my master bedroom (on low). -My pool pump runs daily from 8am-5pm but is variable speed (Pentair Intelliflo -consuming 200-250 watts per hour usually). In the 10 months I have owned the Sense unit, it has never identified the pool pump as anything (not even a guess). -The same goes for my computer. I have tried to turn the computer off at night but the Sense unit hasnt even attempted to guess what this daily ~225watt load is. -One other appliance that I was surprised that the Sense unit could not identify is our dishwasher. We run it about 3x a week on the same setting every time. It is an older dishwasher from 2007, so it would be nice to see how much energy each cycle uses. -From time to time, I log into the app and see that it thinks that appliances are running when they arent. I "report" the errors and the app just says "we will use the info to make things more accurate". The problem with group machine learning is that the data has to be accurate (to become useful information). I dont feel there are many homeowners out there that are willing or able to accurately confirm all their appliances as running (they are more apt to just confirm the app's suggestion that an appliance is what it really is). Garbage data input equals garbage data output. For example: a group of non-observant homeowners using this device could confirm the Sense guess that an appliance is their clothes dryer when it really is their oven (because they both have similar electric resistance loads). The machine learning becomes flawed and could start to predict other homes the same way. Again, this device is very accurate at detecting overall energy usage and does a great job keeping track of overall energy usage BUT do not expect it to accurately figure out everything in your home on a granular level (ex. Dishwasher, Clothes Dryer, Iron, Clothes washer, living room lights, Coffee Maker, Toaster, Oven, TV, Cable Box, Cable Modem, Computer, Garage Lights, Vacuum Cleaner, Air Purifier, Pool Pump, etc). If those are your expectations, then you will be pretty pleased with the product. It still has great features but know it's limitations based on on my (and other's) real-world experiences and I think you will be happy. Update Sept. 22, 2019 Device is still unable to detect anything accurately in my home except the garage lights, garage door opener, and a 500 watt heating element load. It occasionally gets my pool cleaner pump (not my main pool pump) but it also says its on during the day when it is clearly not, so the usage statistics are not accurate (such as percentage of daily usage). No matter how many times I report the device as not on, it eventually gets detected as falsely on after a few days. It does see my mini fridge and regular fridge but confuses the two back and forth on a regular basis, so again usage statistics for each device is wrong. It sometimes is able to nail my AC condenser but not always, so again, usage statistics are inaccurate. This is a very good overall usage meter as it is accurate within a half a percent of what my utility company says I use and when I use electricity, but I stand by my statement that the appliance learning is a crapshoot at best. I have had the device for 18 months and it is unable to "learn" my home appliances, so i have a glorified live energy monitor, which is useful, however I would never trust the appliance usage statistics. Update: March 5, 2021 Upgraded to a solid 4.25 stars! I installed a 6 panel solar array (enphase system) in Spring 2020 and this Sense monitor is my go-to for live production statistics. Rarely a day goes by that I dont check my solar statistics using this app. The enphase enlighten portal is great but it only reports individual panel production and house power consumption in 15 minute increments. The sense monitor can tell me second by second my solar production vs. grid usage. Since I have a small array, I dont export much to the grid but I plan to install additional panels when I can afford it (the majority of the costs of phase 1 was the design with expansion in mind, equipment install, the electrical wiring and conduit that had to be installed in a tight attic; luckily phase 2 will not require any house wiring changes this time). The Great new features I am using: - Solar section of the app is great (it is my go-to page) - I am also very happy with the Sense Labs portion of the app. The best part of sense labs is the electrical fault detection. It is constantly monitoring the power quality and lets you download a 30 day history of any voltage dips and spikes into a csv spreadsheet format. Why is that important? If you have a electrical feeder or floating neutral with an intermittent connection problem like I did (ours was a bad connection on one of the two 125v power feeders at the transformer). Having this information can help you provide information to your power company or electrician when they are trying to troubleshoot an intermittent problem like flickering lights. Labs also looks at motor stalls, which is great, especially for AC units. It may alert you to the fact that a capacitor on an induction compressor or blower motor is failing or has failed (this will cause winding damage and eventual failure if left untreated). - Integration with thermostats and smart wifi plugs & switches. Now the devices it can identify are more accurate and you can see usage stats on the individual TP-Link wifi switches. - Expansion port is not just for solar anymore. It can now be configured a few different ways, which is helpful for those with 400 amp service panels (two 200 amp panels in the home). I still wish there was a way to do 400 amp service and still monitor solar (this is not a problem for me, but some larger houses with solar may not be able to take full advantage of a sense monitor unless they roll out a version with multiple sensor ports or they find a way to parallel two monitors on the same account). The rest - Most of what I said in my past reviews still stand but accuracy is decently better. I do think it is worth it now for most homeowners to get one. It helps shed light on our usage and it provides some monitoring and alerts for things like power quality and motor stalls that a homeowner may not be aware of until it gets a lot worse. It is also very obvious that they are constantly improving features and accuracy. They have a great forum that their staff looks at (including asking for feature improvements). Even though this product is not perfect, you can tell that they are continuing to innovate and add new useful features (and so far the price point has not changed since I purchased it).

I'm Thailand customer who want to try this cool gadget. Of course, the warranty will automatically voided. And i'm fully awared my risk and acknowledged. I hope my review could provided valuable information for other international customer. And you may use it at your own risk. My electrical system. (In Thailand, which is common in EU-standard.) Is 1 Phase (Non-split like US), 220 Volt, 50 Hertz Which means... i have 2 wire goes to my house. One is LINE, another one is NEUTRAL. And voltage across Line-Neutral is 220 Volt. I'm am Mechanical Engineer and have some basic knowledge about electrical system. So, i'm doing this on my own (With my Dad's help) without certified electrician. We use extremely caution, and use probe to double check which wire is Live (Always have electricity) and which line is Neutral. Installation step : (Find the picture) I detach the main-panel and on the left side. You will see main circuit-breaker with two big black-wire (That coming from power-line) connected to it. Black wire on the LEFT pass thought breaker and connected to upper uninsulated Bus-bar. (This is Neutral zero Volt) Black wire on the RIGHT pass through breaker and distribute electricity through all of Circuit-breaker on the right. (This is Line 220 Volt) For electrical wiring, i have two breaker empty (the 6th and the 7th) So, the Black-wire (Power supply & voltage sensing to SENSE) goes to 6th breaker. And White-wire obviously goes to upper busbar (Neutral) For the Current sensing (The clamp), just attached only one to the Line. Setup : When i switch on the power. The app show that something wrong with the installation :) I just continue and go to the main screen. And yes, its showing Power consumption for only one phase. Testing : I do initial testing, like turn on the light. Use the Induction hobs, oven. The app show the power consumption very accurate. Problem : Yes, i use this in Thailand. So, after 3 hour of data-sampling. The main menu indicate warning say about "Sense detected an installation problem and unable to fix automatically. Support team will take a look." Because i use only one phase with abnormal 220 Volt. And SENSE probably cannot analyse my current and voltage data to map electronic devices in my house. I'll try to contact SENSE team... if they could make my account as an exception. And analyst my data... Another problem is, when SENSE was running for a while. The real time data of Power (Watt) indicate the app seem to be shift. and its getting larger by the time passed. For example, on the 10:45 its showing live feed of data on 10:40. I thought this might be internet connection or bug. So, i reset my router and SENSE. Its still happening and three hour passed. The gap was larger. Like.. on 13:50, SENSE live-feed time showing data from 13.35 ! Conclusion : Regardless to problems (exclude i cause by using it in Thailand). I'm satisfy with the futuristic concept of tracking power consumption in household. The setup was quite simple, If you have electrical knowledge. If you don't, just call professional guy to take care that for ya. I can't try this AI-feature yet. But still love it ! Update : 2/2/2020 Day 0 After SENSE detected installation problem and cannot analyse electrical signal to map my house appliance. I've sent an email to support team to unlock or by-pass. And at the end of day, App show that installation diagnosis is OK and start listening now. Day 1 My Pressure booster water pump was detected. (Brand : Grundfos) App saying that most user voted this might be 97% match to the "Pump" I do some verification, on the pump on.. see if SENSE detect this pump. And yep, this is definitely the pump. Day 2 Sense notify that two new device detected. Heater & Motor... Identify the "heater" was a little bit difficult. Because i have... Water heater, Rice cooker, Induction stove ? But after i click at the usage data. I can see that this Heater was active around 6 p.m. At that time, i was't shower or use the stove ! So, 100% this is rice-cooker. (Electrolux-brand) App suggest Coffee maker 50% & Rice cooker with 40% confidence, Good guess ! For motor, i just click and see the activity. This one was active on 11:00 p.m. until 8:00 in the morning. Also, it keep cycling ON-OFF for 50-70 times during night App suggest this one was A/C with 97% confidence !

I know someone who uses this and it seemed to be cool and might help reduce and track some power draw at my house. Install wasn't too bad, really just came down to were I could fit everything (clamps were a tight fit and I had to route cables outside of my box) but that's no problem of the product. The app setup itself was super easy and quick. Unfortunately that's where the good ends. It sometimes finds a device and will mark it. 95% of them are incorrect, or the 1 device is actually 3-4 different ones. I use a lot of electricity in my house and it's very standard stuff and I was hoping for sense to at LEAST find 25% of them in the 2 months I have been using it. For reference I am way above the top electrical users in my area, state, and all of sense it reports. air fryers oven\stove Fan and or light above oven 2 ceiling fans 3 computer monitors 2 TVs Soundbar 1 desktop 2 laptops 3 servers Sonicwall firewall Cisco switch Netgear switch Aruba switch 2x KVMs 5 cell phone chargers Washer Dryer Dishwasher Kureg Thermostat 3x space heaters (used as only heat source) bathroom fan IP camera (not PoE) Electric blanket All LED lighting (23 different fixtures) 2 shop lights As you can see I have a ton of devices this think could eat up. It found the water heater, and days after found the second heating element and I was able to merge the devices. It learned my microwave that I almost never use It leaned a some cycles of my clothes washer It knows the vent fan in my dishwasher, but not the unit itself It learned 1 of airfriyers. It found 1 of my air friers, and it merged it with 1 of my space heaters. I asked support what could be done and they just said if it's wrong delete it so I did. It has not learned the 1 air fryer or heater in question again. That's it, nothing else. Not even attempts. I have 2 space heaters, 1 I run at night in the master bedroom, and it will run until it's warm then cycle off. It's a Vornado, not that it should matter, and another space heater in the living room during the day, same thing. It never has attempted to identify any piece of electronics such as a desktop, laptop charger, phone charger, server, switch. You know the stuff you would like to know how much is pulling? I tried to use the community forums but I as a paying member not allowed to even post my own threads, just respond to other peoples, what crap is that? People have all these pictures of bubbles of what their home had\uses and all I ever get are 2 bubbles. Always on, and Other. Not very useful. Ironically the "other" is mostly always on. I have 2 servers running 24/7 that pull more constant wats then the always on so they can't even get that right. There is a section where they detail always on devices, and it just lists the sense device itself at 3 wats, out of my 465 of always on. I am curious how some people are having any luck with the device. I understand my environment is rather complex but this device was not advertised as a device in alpha, this is not even beta quality software, it just doesn't work and there is no way to troubleshoot, or even let the developers know something is wrong. I will continue using this until mid January and then I am going to rip it out and return it back to Amazon. This is not even worth $25 to me in it's current state. a Killawat meter provides way more accurate information then this. I thought it was much more matured and would make attempts to learn anything I have. Update: I reached out to support for a second time and they reported that my device needs to be within 10-15 feet of my wireless accounts points. I stated it was 50 feet away (has perfect signal) and they are just going down some random notepad of ways to essentially deny looking at your support request. Not once has my device lost signal except for when I turned my main power off to do some electrical work.

Application - Rent an attached apartment in my home that has its own panel box and need to bill tenant for monthly electric expense. Works well for my application. Installation: Installed two 15 amp breakers, 1 on phase A and 1 on phase B and according to tech support, they don’t have to be bridged. If you don’t have any free spaces for new breakers, you can piggyback on two existing breakers as long as one is on phase A and the other on phase B. Setup can only be completed with phone app and must have Bluetooth AND Location turned on. You can turn location off after Sense is detected and setup. Web App - You can only export your data with the web app and it has day, week, month and year exports. This is the most important feature if you are running a business. In these modern times of slick and smooth apps, this is not one of them and will probably go through many updates as time goes on to bring it into modern times. All the other fluff about monitoring other appliances is useless to me. I already know that when an appliance is turned on I will use more electricity. Antenna - Have a flush mounted panel box and installed antenna into a punch-out hole in the panel box as per instructions and works fine. Phone App - Fair at best. Can’t export data with phone app. If you’re away you need to get to a computer to log into the web app to export data. Advantages - System runs off WiFi and data is sent to cloud where you can log on with a computer to access your data. Would be nice if you have a strong WiFi signal near the Sense. My router is over 100’ from the panel box being monitored so I installed an Asus RP-AC51 WiFi repeater. Now Sense has access for full 2.4G (5G not recommended) WiFi signal strength and have not experienced any drops. Warranty: A very substandard 60 day warranty. Which means they don’t want to backup or have confidence in their products. Tech support responded to my questions within a reasonable time. Where made: “We manufacture our Sense monitors in North America and abroad.” Poor excuse for an answer and sounds like they are trying to hide the words, “Made in Communist China.” Update 02/10/2021 - System has been rock solid, probably due to strong & stable 2.4G WiFi. Tech support has replied back to several emails very quickly and am very satisfied with the timing of their response. In the past I’ve used TED Pro Home (The Energy Detective) and Efergy Energy monitor and both are substandard when compared to Sense. TED uses home power lines and has way too many interruptions. Efergy requires the sending unit in the panel box and receiving unit at the router to be in direct line of sight, which is very difficult to accomplish and way too many drops. In a business environment where you are billing a tenant for accurate electric expense, then the Sense Energy Monitor is your only reliable choice.

Very impressed with this technology. What distinguishes this product from others in this space is all power usage is sent to Sense which is analyzed to identify the unique usage signature of a particular device to distinctly report upon the power usage of that device. This occurs with just two sensors attached to the incoming power lines to the breaker box. The downside to this is as a user of the product you have no control influence the identification of a device, Sense does it all with the machine learning backing the product. The positive is it is relatively simple install, and it is hands off once completed, you just sit back and wait for Sense to do its magic for distinct devices appear. I was on the fence with this purchase for over a year, primarily due to the reports from some owners of it not detecting many distinct devices. My experience has been positive, I have had it running for 2 months in my household, and has detected 20 distinct devices to date. Sometimes it knows exactly what the device is "Washer" for example, sometimes it only recognizes that there is distinct device, but it's not sure of the product so it lists a generic name "Motor 1" or "Heat 1" for example, giving you a clue to what the identified device might be, but you have to do some leg work to identify what it is. Once you do, you can rename and classify the device in the app, helping Sense get "smarter" for other owners of the product. I am amazed how responsive the app displays usage as devices power on, it is instantaneous so you can see the power draws in real time. You can also enter your wattage cost and the app provides the usage cost per device, and per household over a selected time period (per day, week, month, year, and billing cycle). This helped me identify that my water heater is consuming over 30% of my overall power usage. It also ties in with IFTTT so you can receive alerts when a particular device turns on for example. Setup of the device was fairly easy, the only part that is not "plug and play" is tying it into a breaker, the rest of the setup is pretty hands off. It took about 30 minutes from beginning the install to having it reporting information in the app, I did watch/read a lot of info prior to installing as I am unfamiliar with electrical work, but once I understood what was required, I felt it was an easy install. I recommend owners or those considering purchase to check out the reddit community as a great source of information. Great product today, and will continue to get better as their user base grows and more devices get fed into their database.

Bought this to monitor the large energy uses in my home. Uses technology to determine what is using the electricity. Has been installed for a month now and still has not found some obvious devices that are on all the time such as the PTAC Heat pump, dehumidifier, refrigerator, and the electric car charger. There is 1009 Watts of energy being used always that have not yet been identified. It would be nice if you could manually add devices as there is a feature which allows you to check usage of items by turning them on and off to see how much they use, but you cannot add them. It also guesses at devices it cannot specifically ID and gives them generic names like Stove 2 or motor 2 and then you have to be Columbo to figure out what it is and rename the. It is painfully slow to ID devices as it took 30 days to ID the Window AC. If I had to buy it again, I would investigate other possibilities to obtain the information I want as I believe this device for the money is in need of more development to fully inform one of all the energy usage.

I've been thinking about getting the Sense Monitor for some time. I have seen it advertised online and was curious how it worked and what it could do for me. My setup at home is I have solar and bought an electric car (Leaf) a few months ago. I was interested in seeing how much electricity my Leaf was pulling from a 110v plug. I figured in was in the 1kw to 1.5kw range. I always felt my I had my home running as efficient as I could with newer appliances, LED lights, and power settings set on different devices. My goal with the Sense was not to save money, but more to see how it worked, what my different appliances were using, especially an old refrigerator in the garage. With Solar meeting my current energy needs, I'm not looking for any particular ROI on this investment. My thoughts so far on the Sense are: 1. Installation- ok, the constant you must use an electrician had me a little nervous about trying to install myself. While I have a basic understanding of electricity and how my house is set up, I had never worked in the breaker panel before, other than flipping a breaker. I watched as many videos on installation as I could and understood that the Sense needs to hook up to a 240v. I didn't have a free 240v breaker and have no room to add a new one, outside of adding a subpanel. I decided to add the Sense to an existing 240v breaker that is labeled for master bedroom lights etc. While this may not be up to code in my area, not really sure honestly, the Sense uses such little electricity, 4w, and .05amp, I crossed my fingers that this would not be a disaster. I'm sure an electrician would lecture me about not doing this but hopefully, all will be ok. I put the Sense on the lowest rated 240v breaker, per Sense recommendation. To install I had to turn off the main breaker, solar, and solar inverter. After getting the sense hooked up I turned everything back on but didn't hear the beep you are supposed to hear when Sense is hooked up correctly. I turned the main breaker off/on again and thankfully I heard the success beep from the Sense. The only problem I have is finding space in the breaker box for the sense. My breaker box is a bit crowded so I need to spend some time putting it in a better place, right now I have it kind of just laying on the bottom. ***If you have no clue about electrical setups and what is in your breaker panel, get an electrician.*** 2. Application/web page- after successfully installing the Sense I set up the app on my iPhone and checked out the Sense webpage to view my data. The Sense will first run through a check before it starts listening for your devices. Sense page said that it can take up to 24 hours to complete the test. I think mine was finished within 6 hours. Two days in my Sense is still listening for devices. At the 48 hour time frame Sense did identify my "always on" power usage and created a category for those. Now it will take time to start identifying individual devices and appliances. It is interesting to see how much total wattage/kw I am using at any time. You can see spiked when different appliances turn on/off. A few surprises based on this information, my new Sony OLED 55 inch tv does not use as much electricity as I would expect. I think it is in the 80-100 watt range. My furnace that is 3 years old and 2 stage runs about 500 watts, really not bad all considering. My Leaf, when plugged into 110v standard outlet pulls about 1500 watts. As I am writing this review, Sense just emailed me that it found its first device, my fridge. Since I have two I was curious how I would tell which one it is. Based on watts used per day it looks to be my newer, more efficient kitchen fridge. The fridge in the garage is old and would pull more watts than what Sense is saying this fridge is pulling. I'm on my way with device/appliance detection, will be interesting to see how Sense does. I did give Sense the ability to monitor my home network to help identify electronic devices in my home, and I have a lot as I'm an IT professional and geek. On another note, I have some Wemo and Phillips Hue lights and Sense integrates with those to easily identify them and monitor their usage. You can also turn your lights on/off through the Sense app. 3. Value- Sense is not cheap, but I'm sure some of the price is to help pay for continued monitoring, data storage, and data management. As a technology geek, I don't mind spending a few $'s to try something out, it is just a hobby for me. If I was not a geek, it would be hard to justify the price. Sense says they are focusing on helping owners get more value from the device, and I think that is a good thing for them to do as to get higher adoption beyond early adopters, they need to show value for the price. With Solar, I'm not going to save anything as I can cover my electrical needs with my installation. The new variable which may change that is my Leaf. The Sense will let me monitor and become more knowledgeable on my home efficiency to help make sure I'm keeping all my electricity needs covered by solar. If you are interested in Sense and needs someone to install the device, consider the full cost of the device and installation. The price may not be worth the potential return on investment, at this point in time. If you like technology and want to check it out etc, I find Sense a very cool device and I'm satisfied with how it is working and what it is providing to me.

I've now had sense installed almost a week, and will update this review as events progress. At this point my feeling is that while Sense may be a great development of interest to those who were familiar with what was possible before, they have clearly oversold and under-delivered to the mass populace. Installation Installation wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped. There were no real instructions online, so no way to see what installation would entail until the product arrived. I took Sense's word for it and hired an electrician for the day Sense would arrive. It turns out you just need to connect Sense to a breaker so it has power, and place two sensors around your incoming mains...something almost anyone can do without hiring a ridiculously expensive electrician. After seeing the electrician off, I then spent an hour trying to get my Sense app to connect. Sense had made the 'successfully installed' tone when we turned power back on, so I was confused. Eventually, buried in the help docs, I found that Sense only listens for BT setup connections for the first 15 minutes. After that you need to flip the breaker off and on. That's a terrible design decision; it should listen until something connects and it's setup. But if they had to design it this way it should at least be placed in big bold letters on the 'connection failure' screen. Note that I mentioned Bluetooth. You will need a phone or tablet with bluetooth to set Sense up. This is not optional, even if you plan to use a PC to do all your reporting and monitoring. In short, I could not easily install and setup Sense myself in 20 minutes, but due to poor design/instructions I paid an electrician over $100 and wasted several hours on it. Performance For the first day or two everything was an unknown device, though it was neat to be able to see my total household power usage at any given time, and watch it change as I switched stuff on and off. It said to wait 24 hours before devices started to appear. I didn't see my first device until 40 hours in, and it was named motor 1. I spent much time running around the house trying to figure out what it was to no avail. It turned on every time I used the hot water so I thought it may be my tankless water heater, but it only used 2kw, and I watched "other" jump to 15-20kw at the same time (which is what the heater is capable of using), so it really didn't make sense. My best guess is that it was one of the three coils in the heater, but I still don't know why it would only use 2kw. It didn't matter in the end anyway, as after a couple days, and all that time trying to track it down, it just disappeared from my UI! At this point I also have "Pump 1" and "Motor 2", which don't seem to correspond to anything either; I've checked all the appliances and pool equipment. I'm guessing they're components of something larger. I have "Microwave" which reads power usage when the microwave is on, but it also read 1350w when I was sitting there eating dinner and the microwave hadn't been on for almost 20 minutes. I have "AC" which finally showed up on day 5, but it reads as off when I hear my AC compressor spin up. I also tried cycling similar devices (like my pool heater) but nothing lit it up. And "AC" is listed as consuming 1300-1400 watts when it is running, despite the fact I can watch "Other" jump by 3kw - 4kw every time the AC comes on. And that's it. Almost a full week and I have 2 device identified, 2 devices that I'm supposed to identify, and 90% of my power usage falls into "Other" and "Always On". Hardly the recipe for making energy saving improvements. UI There seem to be more features in the app than on the desktop (HTML) interface, which is weird. My computer is where I want to create my spreadsheets, run reports, create predictive models...I can't do that on my phone. It seems like a design decision was made to cater to vacuous young first time homeowners who are interested in flash but without the attention span for depth. (not that all young adults are like that; just the ones this app is catered to). That doesn't matter anyway, because there are no spreadsheets. There are no CSV downloads or even reports that list on/off times. Besides being absolutely require for running any kind of predictive models, this is the most important information you need to identify devices! I raised this point with support and they said their dev team was considering it. I've been a web applications developer for 20 years...if basic reporting of critical data was not in my project plan before I even wrote a line of code I'd be reprimanded in almost any job I've held. This is absolutely unacceptable. The lack of reporting is made more critical by the fact that the interface lies. After spending an hour trying to track down a device the other day that my phone showed as off the entire time (even though the device I thought it was had turned on and off a few times), I finally looked at my computer to see that the web interface showed it as on. So one of the two interfaces was lying. I've seen this other times too. And I've also noticed that the web interface will show something as off, but after I refresh the page it shows as on. On/Off reports aren't the only problem. I watched a device turn off the other day (even had the alerts on my phone set so that I got instant notification). It was the device that I identified as being associated with my hot water. However, within 15 seconds of it turning off my phone reported the device as "Off for 16h". Less than 2 minutes later my computer reported it as "Off for 26m". So was it off for 1 minutes, 26 minutes, or 16 hours? Was I hallucinating the alerts? How can we possibly be expected to identify a device with such wildly inaccurate data!? The UI really seems to be the biggest problem with Sense; even worse than the poor identification. And that's because it's not just doing a poor job; it's actually giving us incorrect information. Conclusion I'm really not sure what was out there before. Maybe pre-Sense our only option was a meter to see how much total power was coming into the home, and Sense is an amazing breakthrough. And maybe after a few months of learning Sense will be more accurate and give me useful data. I really don't know. And that's the point: I really don't know. Neither does most of the public who doesn't really have experience with this sort of thing (read: the vast majority). So when Sense promises things like "Over time, Sense's machine learning algorithms identify unique signatures in the power use of individual devices within your home and match them against a growing database of appliances and home electronics" we have no context within which to evaluate them. So Sense really has a responsibility of setting a context...or at least letting people know that "over time" means timescales measured in weeks, or even months or years. So far I have learned nothing that will help me save money on my electric bill. Instead, I'm out $400 and countless hours trying to be a Sense detective. Maybe my feelings on Sense will change over time as it learns more, and if that happens I'll leave an update, but for now I'm not happy at all that I purchased this product.