sense.comThe Sense Home Energy Monitor

-- End of the comment -- Web App Products Sense Sense Solar Accessories Reviews Installation Technology How It Works Integrations Specifications Get Inspired Sense Saves Stories Our Blog Community Partners Partner with Sense Become a Sense Pro Get In Touch Partner Login Support Help Center Installation FAQs Our Blog Buy Sense Products Sense Sense Solar Accessories Reviews Installation Technology How It Works Integrations Specifications Get Inspired Sense Saves Stories Our Blog Community Partners Partner with Sense Become a Sense Pro Get In Touch Partner Login Support Help Center Installation FAQs Our Blog Buy Sense This is Sense. Sense installs in your home’s electrical panel and provides insight into your energy use and home activity through our iOS, Android, and web apps. Play Video Sense Saves. It really does! With energy insights from Sense, real users report savings that show Sense can pay for itself. Browse or search to see the simple and sometimes amazing ways users have saved. Sense convinced renters to switch to gas heat Space Heater Our renters were using a space heater in their trailer at night, instead of their propane heat. Neither we nor they realized exactly how much that was costing until we installed Sense… Read Story Water heater savings with Sense Water Heater I found out our 20-year-old resistance electric water heater would run for an hour or 2 at 900 watts. I researched water heaters and found one that runs like a heat pump using about… Read Story Sense identified bad furnace relay Heat Pump – Thermal Zone We started seeing an increase in our power bills over the Summer months of 2017. It had increased by $150, then up $300 more, by the end of the Summer we had a $900 power bill… Read Story Read more Sense Saves stories See what's up. Know what's on. See how much electricity you’re using, what time your kids got home, or when a basement light comes on. Sense identifies patterns in your energy use to help your family be more efficient, informed, and secure. Learn More Power is knowledge. Measure solar production versus power consumption. See which appliances use the most energy and how much they’re actually costing you. Track watts like footsteps or miles-per-gallon. Learn more › Simple installation. Sense is a small but powerful computer installed in your electrical panel by a licensed electrician, usually in less than 30 minutes. Using two clamp-on sensors and a 240V breaker, the Sense monitor samples current and voltage one million times per second to determine where your energy is going. Learn more › About us Built by the same team that brought speech recognition technology to market. We made it possible for people to talk to their cell phones. Now, we’re making it possible for people to talk to their homes. Learn more › “I can confidently say that after you install it, it will eventually become the smartest gadget in your home — and help you save money to boot.” Time Magazine Frequently Asked Questions Does Sense charge subscription fees? No. There is only a one-time cost for the Sense energy monitor. Use of the Sense mobile and web apps is included. New features and enhancements are free via app updates and over-the-air software upgrades. How do I install Sense? Sense should only be installed by a licensed electrician. Installation itself is quick and easy, but it requires opening up your electrical panel and connecting current sensors to the service mains. These wires are live, even with your main breaker switched off, and are thus very dangerous. Only a licensed electrician is qualified to work in these conditions. When speaking with your electrician, let them know that Sense is an energy monitor that installs in your electrical panel with two clamp-on current sensors around the mains, and a 240V breaker which Sense uses for its power supply and also to measure voltage on both legs. Unless you have a spare 240V breaker in your panel, your electrician will likely need to provide a new one. You may also wish to share with your electrician this blog post and video to help them get a better idea for what’s required: https://blog.sense.com/articles/the-sense-installation-process/ A set of installation instructions is also included in the package, and available online: https://sense.com/help/installation How does Sense work? With just two clamp-on current sensors, the Sense Home Energy Monitor takes current and voltage measurements over 1 million times every second. From this incredibly high-resolution data, it derives the electrical signatures of individual devices. In comparison, most “high resolution” smart meters only take measurements every couple of seconds…hardly real time! You can read more about how Sense works in this blog post . Within the first week of installation, Sense should be able to find some common devices that cycle on and off frequently, like your refrigerator or microwave. Some devices will take longer to identify, until the algorithms have seen enough contextual data to reliably detect them. There are devices that Sense won’t be able to recognize right away, but as more Sense Home Energy Monitors are installed across the US and Canada, our machine learning algorithms will have more data to generate models from, and the device detection capabilities will just keep growing! Will Sense work with my solar panels? Most likely! Your incoming solar feed must connect directly into your main electrical panel, either through a breaker or a service-side tap. If solar is set up in a subpanel, the incoming solar feed should be within 46″ of the main panel. This will allow the current sensor cable to reach and connect to the Sense monitor in the main electrical panel. Extension cables are available in lengths of 4′, 12′, 25′, and 40′ should your solar feed be further than 46″ from your main electrical panel. These extensions can be combined to achieve larger lengths, but the maximum length should be no more than 80′. For accurate solar production readings, there should not be any other live circuits connected to the subpanel. The Sense Solar Monitor is available for purchase here , or you can add solar sensors to your existing Sense Monitor for just $50 . If you aren’t sure if your particular setup will work, please contact our support team . When will Sense detect my devices? After your Sense monitor is installed and the signal check process is complete, Sense will start pulling in data to feed its device detection algorithms. The device detection process is not immediate; Sense needs to see many on/off event cycles of a device in order start building up a model for it. Most customers will start seeing detections within the first one to two weeks. The first devices identified are often common devices that cycle frequently and consume large amounts of power, like your refrigerator or washing machine. Less commonly used, smaller load, or complex signature devices like coffee makers, televisions, and electric vehicles tend to take longer to find. Please note that due to variances across homes in terms of power quality and in the types of device present, total detection coverage of your entire home is unlikely. To better understand how you can help Sense learn about your home, please see this Help Center article . Can Sense detect all devices? Even before Sense discovers devices in your home, it’s easy to see how much energy they consume just by turning them on and off and watching the Power Meter in real time. Check this video to learn more. Once Sense completes the signal check process, it will start detecting devices in your home. Sense is able to identify many electrical devices in typical homes, and we continue to expand our device detection abilities via crowdsourced data as more Sense monitors come online. However, it likely won’t detect everything. Low-wattage consumer electronics like computers, smart devices, and game consoles can be especially tough to track. As we get data from more and more homes, the perf...